At the Psychiatrist
by The Mad Empty Shell
Summary: Ch8 up,in which:Jack curses a lot,Namine eats minestrone,Sora is showered with the light of Destiny,Riku fails in love, King Mickeys snores, and Tetsuya turns out to be an idiot. AkuRoku, SoRiku, mystery throughout
1. Prologue

_**I EDITED THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS! IF YOU ALREADY READ THEM, YOU CAN SKIP THEM!**_

**Warnings:** Raw humor plays the greatest part here. You can consider me a total dumbass when it comes to Final Fantasy – I never played it! I just got to know a few things about its characters from Wiki and other fanfictions.

**Pairings: **AkuRoku, SoRiku, other crazy pairings I won't mention since they're minor.

**YOU **_**HAVE**_** TO READ ALL THE UNDERLINED BOLD NOTES FROM NOW ON, EVEN THOUGH YOU THINK YOU DON'T NEED TO – YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY WRONG.**

* * *

**At the Psychiatrist**

**-Prologue-**

There are a lot of reasons explaining why Jackwell Greengrass hated FanFiction-net so much. Listing them would be futile, but he tried anyway, just to kill his time.

1. TOO MANY YAOI FANGIRLS.

What the fuck?! Why do girls like gay love so much? Not that he was against it or anything, but almost _every single fucking _story was about two or more guys falling in love with each other! And what's worse? Please read point number 2.

2. HE WAS FORCED TO READ THEM.

Believe it or not, he was, like, the only guy around the site... most likely. In fact, all the authors he knew from FF-net were 16 years old hormonal, crazy girls... But then again, it's easy to hide your identity and all. Hell, you could pass him as a 25 years old perverted guy who just came back home from a rather sweaty visit to a gay bar, now wanting nothing but to drop on his chair and browse through millions and billions of M-rated fanfics, all containing two very hot guys having hardcore butt-sex on a couch with lights turned off and windows open to the moonlight and all that 'romantic' jazz... Not that Jack would ever want to call all this 'romantic'; he was sure there was another word for it. And oh, by the way, was _not_ what you just read as being... Why is he wasting his time? No one would believe him anyway.

Anyway. As said before, he was _forced _to read these stories. Why is he even complaining about this? It's not like anyone will _ever_ understand how he feels. If anyone thinks they do, then they should fuck off. How can anybody possibly know how it feels to have half of the female population of your very big family and friends being part of Internet's giga-enourmous Yaoi Kingdom? All of his female cousins and aunts and friends were members of a large number of yaoi communities in FF-net and other sites (like the y!Gallery, for example). And being _his_ relatives, they literally tied him to a chair in front of the computer and glued his eyelids open, compelling him to beta-read story after story. So yeah, he was a beta-reader to be specific, and the only advantage he got from it was the money. But then again, he was dead rich already! What did he need more money for, for fuck's sake?!

3. FF-NET HATES 'FANCY' PUNCTUATIONS.

Since he was a trusted beta-reader, he also had the responsibility to post stories from several accounts. And when, after hours and hours of proofreading, he finally got to publish some fucking story, he'd just click the little 'Preview' link, and all his feelings of happiness would slowly start to thaw... So that in the end, he'd have to clean up the mess and start _all... over... again!_

Jack stopped writing furiously in his journal (_J-O-U-R-N-A-L, not DIARY! He didn't keep diaries!_), bringing his head up to see the person who decided to barge into his room in the middle of his 'LEAVE-ME-ALONE!' sessions. Just as he was about to scream at whomever to get the hell out of his room, he froze.

There in the doorway stood Hikaru Utada in all her magnificence.

"We need to talk."

* * *

Did you know that beta-reading was only Jack's part-time job? This is such a dumb question. Of course you didn't. But this question was anyway asked to imply something... Yes, you guessed it! Well, _some_ of you did, probably... The point here is that Jack considers beta-reading a hobby... a painful and forced one, yes, but it still was a hobby. Something he did in his _spare_ time. Which means that _usually_, he's busy with something more important to do... like a job. Yeah, he definitely did have a job.

As a psychiatrist.

... Didn't see that one coming did you? You were probably imagining poor little Jackie being a psycho himself after reading the first part of this chapter...

Back to the story.

Jack sighed deeply and took out his small journal. Neatly, he started writing.

"_Saturday, August 10th, 2007... Since I was a little kid, I always wanted to become a pirate serial killer... Then, when I started 4th grade, I figured out that I wouldn't last long because the police would capture me and lock me in a prison and I'd die of old age... NU-UH, NEVER! Somebody please tell me why that blond guy is staring at me grinning like an idiot."_

Indeed, when he looked up, he saw a blond guy who was staring at him grinning like an idiot. He read his name tag: _Hayner_. What an... an... an effeminate name.

"_I was writing, in 4th grade I started thinking that I could become someone who studies animals, like a vet or a biologist or something, so that I could legally kill whatever animal I wanted to kill... especially pigs. Killing pigs is fun. Then in 6th Grade I changed my mind again, this time about killing... I started to become terrified of the word _kill_ since I was about to be killed myself (by a fire-fighter by the way), so I decided I'd become a biologist just for the sake of it... Oh, and I also became vegetarian. After 8th grade in some American middle school, I went to a British high school... and discovered that the system of education there is different, so I effin had to start 8th grade all over again! And what does that have to do with my main topic? No idea... So, anyway, I changed my mind again (for some weird reason better left untold) and thought, hey, why not, I could become a psychiatrist like... like... like my best friend's mother! But I never thought that I'd have to face a group of psychos like this one here... AGAIN.' _**(1)**

He squinted at the word '_AGAIN_'. Wow, he practically wrote his autobiography in one page...

Jack looked at the gathering of people around the enormous office. Their heads came in many colors: black, chestnut, blond, red, violet, pink, blue, _silver_… Everyone had a different hairstyle as well: there was this guy who had his hair so spiky that he looked like a red porcupine. Then there was this blonde lady with grasshopper antennas… And don't forget the wide size variations: the smallest of the patients was shorter than a meter, his lone lacklustre, round eyes visible under a wizard hat. The tallest one was this etiolated woman with mauve lips and a dull wand and the mien of 'mean ol' witch'. Then came the sundry clothing, then the queer body structures, and then the awkward names. Jack had always had quite a memory, so he easily remembered their names. He bit his lips and looked over at Hayner, who was _still_ grinning maniacally. It was useless to say that...

"_I. AM. TERRIFIED."_

He shut his journal and got up from his chair. He sat on his desk instead, and cleared his throat.

"Ahem... Good morning everyone!"

"GOOD MORNING SOMEBODY-I-DON'T-KNOW!" shouted a boy called Sora, who was holding a rubber version of Winnie the Pooh and jumping on his seat.

Some of the others imitated him (especially that pixie blonde dudette, observed Jack), and the rest either replied with a quiet 'good morning' or didn't reply at all.

Jack rested his chin on the palm of his right hand and shook it lightly.

"Soooooooo..." he started, "I'm Jackwell Gree-... Oh, you know what, never mind, just call me Jack-sensei."

A blond boy with a mixture between a flat-top and a Mohawk jumped on his chair and screamed, "HELLO JACK_IE_-SENSEEEEEEEEI!"

Sora and Rikku (the pixie blonde dudette from before) followed suit. Jack gulped at his new name.

"Umm..." Jack bit his lips, trying to determine what to say next. "I guess we're all feeling fine here, aren't we?"

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAI, JACKIE-SENSEEEEEEEEI!"

"Yep!" Jack clapped his hands, finally smiling. "So let's see, today we're going to talk to each other about... our dreams!" he decided. "Who wants to be first?"

"MEEEEE!" shouted Sora.

"MEEEEEEE!" shouted more loudly Rikku.

"MEEEEEEEEEEE!" shouted even more loudly Demyx.

"PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!" concluded Pooh, after being squeezed too hard by his owner.

Jack was sure that he could've sweat-dropped anime style here. Talk about crazy with a capital C. He decided that he would nothave _any_ one of the three talking. Instead, his wandering finger pointed to a cute redhead girl sitting in one of the front seats. She looked _normal_, with her short burgundy bangs accompany her innocent, navy eyes. He reckoned so since she hadn't uttered a word yet, and she had a reassuring smile on her face. But then again, Mr. Ansem the Wise said that _all of them _needed instant recovery, no matter how innocent they looked.

"Kairi-chan, you wanna start?"

Said girl beamed at him.

"Of course, Jackie-sensei!"

Jack quickly changed his mind about her; _did she just wink at him?!_

"Weeeeell," she started, "You see, yesterday I had a dream..."

"No, really?!" Riku, a guy with bleached silver hair (it was definitely _not _his natural hair color, thought Jack) hissed.

He took his time in realizing that everyone turn to stare at him.

"I was saying!" screeched Kairi, glaring at Riku, who gave her the finger. "I had a dream where I was sitting on the beach and yawning and looking at some starfish, then I was sitting on a paopu trunk with Sora and Riku and then Riku and I kinda melted away!"

"Nooo!" whispered Sora, dropping Pooh on the floor and clinging desperately to his neighbor, Roxas, who eyed him tenaciously.

Jack nodded.

"Hmm. Interesting. Then what happened to Sora-kun?"

"He jumped from the tree!" Kairi shrieked.

"Wow!" exclaimed Demyx.

"Did he die?" Roxas asked with a sore throat, trying to get Sora off him.

"Well, I thought he was going to die," Kairi pouted, "But he ended up on some iceberg with a yellow-dressed dog," she pointed at a yellow-dressed dog, "And a duck with a blue hat," she pointed at a duck with a blue hat, "And a bigass key."

Jack didn't know why Mr. Ansem would think that a dog and a duck needed mental supervision. But he did know that they weren't the only... _animals_... in here. In a seat between them sat a disproportioned mouse with a crown and his... wife. On her lap, two squirrels wearing aprons, and at her feet, a yellow dog was snoring loudly. He monitored his patients again, and noticed a red... dragon-looking thing, a bunch of lions, a baboon, a pig, a... something that looked like a monkey, a monkey, and... _WHATEVER_! Let's get back to Kairi.

"Then there were other flying icebergs and Sora was jumping on them, and then he found me!"

Kairi now was in the verge of tears.

"Oooooh!" a girl called Olette cooed passionately, and Rikku and her felloiw pixie friend Yuna started to sing.

"_Youuuuu found me when no one else was looking, how did you know just where I would beeeee! Yeah, youuuuu broke through all of my confusion, then you did something and something and something, I guess that you saw what nobooooody could see, you found meeeee!"_

Almost all the girls (including a guy with pink hair who _looked _like a girl) were crying along.

Kairi sobbed, "_You found meeeee_, Sora!"

Sora peered from behind Roxas's shirt.

"I did...?"

Riku sniggered. Jack faked to dry off a tear from his face.

"Ah, the power of music..." he sighed slowly, "Kelly Clarkson is the best!"

He didn't really mean that; Natasha Bedingfield is so way cooler than that slut.

"Kairi-chan, please continue."

"I think I was dead, and Sora was so worked up at waking me!" She said sorrowfully, while Sora's mouth took the shape of a perfectly round 'O'. "Then Sora looked behind and saw Riku cross-dressing..."

Riku looked stunned.

"'Scuse me?!"

Jack hushed him.

"What was his dress like, Kairi-chan?"

Kairi gulped.

"It was..."

"It was?"

"It was..." Kairi gulped again, "It was reaaaaally gay!"

"NOOOOO!" Sora screamed, and Axel, the red porcupine guy who all this time was trying to light a match with the power of telepathy, joined in.

Roxas violently fell from his chair and found himself in a rather intimate position with Sora crawling on top of him. Axel and Riku immediately got up and started stomping on Sora's and Roxas's asses respectively (as in Axel was kicking Sora and Riku was kicking Roxas). Everyone else gathered around them in a circle and started to cheer.

Suddenly, they all stopped when they heard a _click_ and saw a flash of light. Jack put down his camera.

"You see," he smirked, "The eye is an organ adapted to sense light. However, the amount of light that enters the eye must be carefully controlled for the eye to function properly. This is achieved through altering the diameter of the pupil."

It is needless to say that Riku blinked not only because of the previous light shock, but also in confusion.

"Say wha?"

"The pupil usually becomes large when the surrounding light intensity is low," Jack recited as an explanation, his face morphing into that of a physics professor boring the class to no end with his objective tone. "And it becomes smaller when the light intensity is high - a reflex action. Sometimes the light may be so bright that decreasing the size of the pupil is not enough, and that's where the camera comes along."

He grinned around the room. Blank eyes were staring at him quite dumbly. He sighed.

"In short, a flash camera is a very useful device to attract everyone's attention!" he exclaimed. "Now, Axel-kun, Riku-kun, please do stop kicking poor Sora-kun and Roxas-kun. You two OK?"

"No," was the obvious reply from Roxas.

Jack didn't mind, "Uhuh," he scribbled down something on a notepad he was holding at the moment, "_Over… lee_… _this... tour... bed_."

Roxas got up, a whimpering Sora still clinging to him.

"Just what the hell!" he shouted exasperatedly to Sora, "Why are you being such a sticky dumbass!?"

Sora sniffed, "Axel just won't stop glaring at me!"

Roxas's piercing indigoes glazed at Axel, who started laughing nervously

"Hehe... I... uh..." the man scratched his head, trying desperately to find a reasonable reason why he was glaring at the brunet, "I... I wasn't glaring! I just though Sora had... cute eyes! So I was just... _staring deeply_! Not glaring!"

Roxas looked at him surprised, and then let out a big breath.

Jack nodded, "Everyone here should take from Roxas-kun. Breath in," he inhaled some air with his nose and waited five seconds before exhaling. "Breath out."

Everyone imitated him, but because Xaldin was trying to beat Xigbar at 'who could breath more air', he nearly suffocated.

"_No... comment..._" Jack scribbled down. "Kairi-chan, what did Riku-kun do with such a gay dress?"

"Oh!" Kairi jumped and resumed her tale, while Riku shot a glare at his current doctor. "He asked Sora to take his hand!"

Shouts of belief, disbelief, and something in-between were heard throughout the room. Sora started to hyperventilate, and Roxas just sat there humming the tune of _Hakuna Matata_. Riku was red in face.

"I DID NOT!" he protested while standing from his chair and pointing a trembling, accusing finger at his former arch enemy.

"YES YOU DID!" Kairi was now pointing too and glaring at him, "BUT LUCKY SORA, HE DIN'T GIVE YOU HIS HAND, AND YOU GOT PWNED BY HIS BIGASS KEY!"

Riku widened his eyes.

"YAY!" Sora shouted, hugging Roxas as tightly as he could.

"NO!" Axel mourned, Jack noted, for some weird reason or maybe no reason at all.

"YES!" Kairi continued her mad rant. "THEN YOU JUMPED INTO A LAKE AND DROWNED..."

Riku held his breath.

"BUT THEN CAME OUT LOOKING DIFFERENT... YOU LOOKED LIKE HIM!" she pointed at Xemnas.

Xemnas hung his mouth wide open, "Me? My same face?"

"Yep!" Kairi nodded.

"My same eyes?"

"Yep!"

"My same hair?"

"Ye- no, actually..." Kairi instantly went fiddling with her fingers timidly, "You put some gel on..."

A scar-faced guy, also known as Saix, was drooling all over the floor.

Just as rapidly she had quieted herself, she looked up grinning maniacally, "HE PWND YOU TOO, BOHAHAHAHA!"

"_Spy... rits... are... all... ways... with... eww_..." Jack's pen continued its course, seemingly unaffected by the developing tumult.

"Then... then... a door opened!" Kairi squealed eagerly, "And Jackie-Sensei clicked his camera!"

Jack looked up from his notepad. What did _he_ have to do with _her_ dreams?!

"You just met him..." a young man whose nametag read Zexion seemed to read Jack's mind.

"And Riku-Xemnas became blind!" Kairi was so overjoyed that she didn't hear Zexion, "Riku dressed back to normal and became mute like a giraffe..."

"Why, you..." Riku gritted his teeth.

"And Sora hugged me!" concluded Kairi, smiling... _sweetly_... at Jack.

Jack narrowed his eyes at his added notes.

"_Sheesh... a... strait... one... defy... neatly... a... voyd... hair_."

He closed his notepad.

Everyone stared at him, begging for an instruction. Except for Roxas, who just waited for things to happen and continued humming _Hakuna Matata_.

Jack walked over to the door and opened it. He smiled tiredly.

"What are you waiting for, guys?" although his voice was raucous, it overpowered the ringing sound of the bell. "It's break time."

* * *

**(1) **With the word 'again' I didn't mean to say that Jack is facing the _KH group_ again, but a _group of very crazy psychos_ again. In short, he has faced one already in his past, and he didn't think there could be another one (crazier than the one he met) in the world. Also, I wanted to point out that the 'KH group' consists of _some_ of the KH characters, not _all_ of them.

_**Authoress'S Notes: **__2902 words long. If following chapters are shorter than this, shoot Sora cookies at me._

**TMES: **I own Jack.

**Jack:** Pfft. She mentioned stuff from _Bleach_. No ownies._Utada Hikaru_ is there for additional humor. You'll understand her part in later chapters.

**R&R!**

_ COMMENT, ASK QUESTIONS, STATE OUT DISCOVERIES, POINT OUT MISTAKES, COMPLAIN!_

**WARN US IF THE STORY IS WAY TOO CONFUSING! TELL US WHERE!**


	2. Chapter 1

_**I EDITED THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS! IF YOU ALREADY READ THEM, YOU CAN SKIP THEM!**_

* * *

**At the Psychiatrist's**

**- Chapter One -**

Axel's electrifying green eyes scanned the cafeteria until they rested on the object of his desires. He felt them narrow and become hazy when he saw dirty-blond spikies standing out in the middle of the mob of people hurrying to get a seat in the room. He felt his fingers tremble, craving to brush those silky, golden strands away from those seraphic ponds of cerulean innocence... He felt his tongue lick his lips ravenously as his eyes caught sight of those morbid, light-pink lips... He felt his legs move eagerly toward that beautiful angel without wings, that ethereal creature that stole his heart with a simple smile...

... Only to fall over a chair and smash his face straight on the floor. His earphones flew away from the crash, detaching themselves from a black PSP, which started to play the song he was listening to secretly at the highest volume.

So much for being poetic.

"Oooooooooh!" an overly-dramatic voice shrieked over his head.

The redhead cursed Kingdom Hearts under his breath and looked up to meet the chubby face of an old fat lady with a red and black dress and a heart-shaped wand. She grinned wickedly at him, an action that made her look like a frog about to burp. She picked up his fallen PSP from the floor, while it continued playing its song, also knows as-

"The _Ding Ding Dong Song_! Oh, I love this thing!"

Axel blinked in confusion; first at the lady, than at his PSP, which continued to sing.

"_Oh, you touched my tra la la... Umm, my ding ding dong!"_

"D_ing ding dong!_" added the ugly lady with her sordid vice.

"... And this is how Axel got to meet the Queen of Hearts, and that's _Leon_."

Jack pouted, "Your nametag reads Squall Leonhart, so I think I'll continue calling you Squall-san. I don't want any of my _patients_ to have an identity crisis."

Leon flinched visibly at the word _patients_.

It was the 10 'o clock break. Just like in a school, a number of patients (along with their respective doctors) had gathered in a spacious cafeteria that resembled a normal lunchroom, only more commodious. There were a few wooden, grey tables scattered around in detectable order, each of them giving hospitality to six people at most. The spaces between the tables were also considerably ample, and this made the chamber even roomier. Not all the mentally ill patients were gathered here, of course – this was just _one _of the many cafeterias dispersed around the hospital. The patients needed more personal space, as the psychiatric laws put it. And more color: the walls of the room were not entirely white and blank, but with a number of flowers, trees, and butterflies scattered here and there. Oh, and the painting of a big hot-air balloon. Rumor had it that the owner of the hospital had this thing for Timothy Boon.

In a solitary table in the middle of the others, Zexion was sitting beside Leon and across from Jack. The other three chairs around the table were empty, for Jack's colleagues had decided that it would be best for him (and them) to have some alone time with his new cases.

"So what did you note down today, Jackwell-sensei?" the younger of the three men asked.

Jack glanced over at Kairi.

"She," he pointed at her, "Is a rather dreamy teenage girl who should stop reading Anne Frank and all her mourns about Petel. Sora-kun," he pointed at the brunet who was eating under the table (having a good grip on Roxas's legs) in order to avoid Axel's merciless eyes (which were even more merciless than before since he was continuously being glomped by an over-sized red toad), "Seems to have many enemies, and he's driving crazy Roxas-kun."

Zexion nodded.

"Uhuh... and did you notice anything _new_ that _we_ didn't?"

Jack snorted at the lilac-haired boy.

"Xaldin-san and Xigbar-san should stay away from each other," he continued, indicating the two mentioned who were now throwing paper planes at anyone nearby, "And Demyx-kun is too lonely for his own good."

Zexion banged his hands on the table and, without any word of excuse, walked away to where Demyx was playing a lullaby with an upset face. Jack took out his notepad and grinned.

"_In... staint... reac... shone_..."

He was lucky to be pretty far away from one of the girl's tables from where Kairi was sending him loving glances.

"He's not looking, retard," Larxene muttered for the umpteenth time, while aiming at Sephiroth's head on the other table with her kunai.

Kairi turned to her and stuck her tongue out at the blonde. Then she quickly went back to what she was doing. Alice sighed contently.

"This is looooooooove..."

"Dish ish craaaaaaaaapp..." Namine contradicted her while sending down a mouthful of lasagna.

Larxene smirked; yay, she finally found the perfect best friend for her! Tifa, on the other hand, turned all the plates and tables and chairs nearby upside-down in the attempt of finding her missing nametag. Jane was writing furiously on a piece of paper.

"Are you thinking of becoming a psychiatrist too?" Mulan asked her, poking the pudding on her plate.

"Yep!" was Jane's unexpected reply. "I discovered the problem with all of us!"

"Oooooh!" Yuna brought her hands over her mouth. "And? What's the problem?"

_"WE'RE ALL DRIVEN CRAZY BY LOOOOOOOOOOVE!"_

Several things happened really quickly. Jane had shouted so loudly that Larxene missed her aim at Sephiroth's head... and instead the kunai sprung directly at his ass. Larxene hissed a "Yes!" Macaulay Culkin style and Sephiroth let out a painful scream that went rarely unheard by the other side of the universe. Lexaeus, who just discovered that he lost his title as 'the Silent Hero', gasped and pulled on Hercules's hand, who accidentally kicked Maleficent's nose, who cast a spell on Aerith, who was about to kiss Cloud but instead _her_ nose grew long and sharp and stung to Cloud's scarf and pulled it so hard that Cloud suffocated.

The bell rang, indicating the end of break-time.

* * *

Jack took out his camera again and clicked a photo of the messed up group of people around the office. He would later send it by e-mail to St. Brutus's Security Center for Hopeless Cases or whatever it was.

"Aha!" the black mouse from before, whose nametag read _King Mickey Mouse_, jumped from his chair and pointed at Jack's camera. "I know what it is! It's not a camera!"

Jack nodded.

"Yeah, it's not a camera, it's a _digital _camera."

"That's not what I meant!" squeaked His Majesty. "It's a neuralizer! When you flash it on people's faces, you erase their memories!"

"Poppycock!" intervened Demyx, "A neuralizer has a red light, and the one who uses it has to wear black sunglasses so that he doesn't neuralize himself!"

His Highness (who wasn't really that high) blushed, "They developed the neuralizer with the passing of time and the coming of new technologies!" he protested. "Now the neuralizer has a white flash, and in order to avoid neuralizing yourself, you gotta wear normal glasses! And he's got them all right!"

Jack pushed his glasses up his nose.

"Your Excellency," he argued, "I'm not a Man in Black."

"You don't have to be!" King Mickey replied, taking a thorough look at his clothes. "I mean, take Namine for instance! She's a Girl in White, and she still knows how to screw you up!"

Jack had recently discovered, through the Namine's sketchbook, that she was a big fan of Surrealism. Her sketches displayed what looked like an alternate universe of her own liking, where she had modified the real life to her own accord. Needless to say, the people she portrayed always gazed vacantly at her art, trying to _remember _when exactly had they done the things they were doing in her drawings. This was exactly what happened to Jack; while leafing through those pages full of bizarre pictures, he had spotted a page recently drawn by the girl, probably during the session before the break. It showed his form asleep inside some kind of a structure… a mixture between a bathtub and a light-bulb, to be precise. When he had asked Namine for an artist's statement, she had shrugged and said that she had actually seen him doing this last night. The redhead had protested that he was sleeping in his bed last night, but Namine had retorted that she had witnessed him sleepwalking to the girls' bathroom and falling asleep on the bath-bulb thing. Jack had firmly replied that there was no such thing in the girls' restroom, and Namine once again won him over by grunting that he had never actually _seen _or entered the bathroom in his consciousness, so how was he to know? The doctor had just blinked and uttered an 'oh', and that was the end of it.

Jack smiled tiredly.

"That's right. But she doesn't use a laser machine to screw up people's memories, and this is not a neuralizer. It's just a device to attract attention, because, as I said before, the eye is an organ adapted to sense light radiat-"

"WHATEVER!"

Everyone turned to Roxas and saw that Sora was now sleeping on his lap, drooling... To avoid further... (Jack looked down at his notes)... _in staint reac shone_, Jack interrupted Riku and Axel from crushing Roxas and Sora down to small unidentifiable pieces.

"Axel-kun, now I want _you_ to tell us about _your _last dream."

Axel was about to say _"NO WAY YOU EFFIN PSYCHIC I'M NOT GONNA TELL YOU WHAT I DREAM ABOUT BECOS MY DREAMS ARE GAY, PERVERTED, PEDOPHILIC, AND PYRO AND ARE ABOUT A CERTAIN SEXY BLOND AND I'M PROUD OF THEM - COMMIT IT TO MEMORY!"_ but stopped at mid-sentence.

"NO WAY YOU EFFIN PSYCHIC I'M NOT GONNA TELL YOU WHAT I DREAM ABOUT BECOS MY DREAMS ARE GAY, PERVERTED, PEDOPHILIC, AND PYRO AND ARE_-_" Axel stopped, hesitated a moment, then grinned.

"ABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-Ok, fine, I'll tell you!"

Riku cursed. He knew Ginger-ass had something in mind... and so did our favorite psychiatrist.

_"Because his dreams are about what?" _he asked himself rhetorically, a sarcastic smirk plastered on his face.

"In my dream, Kairi was standing on the beach!" Axel smirked.

Kairi raised her eyebrow.

"She was just standing there as the day passed, weeks passed..." Axel wandered off dreamily, "Months passed... seasons passed... And since Destiny Islands' got a constant summer climate, she was BURNING under the HOT sun!"

Kairi gasped, "Tell me I had some sun cream with me!"

Axel scratched his head, "Boh, I don't have it memorized... prolly not."

Kairi paled visibly.

"Then, one night," Axel continued, "Kairi was still standing on the beach when suddenly white shiny stuff started falling down from the sky..."

"Did it burn too?" Larxene asked indifferently.

Axel's eyes shone with passion, "YEP IT BURNED LIKE HELL!"

Kairi was now about to have a heart attack.

"And guess what happened neeeeeeeeeeext?!" Axel cooed at Riku, who started to sweat. "Sora came out of a bunch of shiny snow and shouted over to Kairi, waving her a kiss!"

Kairi was shaking her head at a miraculous speed, looking from dear Sora to beloved Jack. Riku was gaping at her, unbelieving. Jack sighed happily. Axel smiled proudly. Sora drooled unknowingly. Roxas planned revengefully. Everyone else silenced himself or herself deadly.

Jane gathered some courage to ask the dangerous question nervously.

"What w-was he sh-shouting?" she enquired trembling, pen and paper in her amateur hands.

"Eeeeeeh..." Axel hesitated, "He shouted something like _'KAIRI, I'LL ALWAYS BE THINKING OF YOU, WHEREVER YOU ARE_!'"

Riku started quaking.

Axel imitated Sora's tiny voice, "_I'LL PRAY FOR YOUR TAN TO END, HOPING THAT YOU'LL ALWAYS WAIT FOR ME AT THE BEACH BURNING UNDER THE SUN! NOW I WILL STEP BACK BECAUSE I REALLY GOTTA GO! AND WHO KNOWS; STARTING A NEW JOURNEY WITHOUT YOU MAY BE FUN, AND LUCKILY IT'S ALREADY BEGUN! THERE ARE MANY GIRLS IN THE WORLD, BUT THEY SHARE THE SAME GUY. ONE GUY, ONE_-"

Axel was not able to finish his speech because Riku's fist suddenly hit him. _Click_, went Jack's neura... ahem, pardon, digital camera. Riku glared and blinked at him at the same time.

"Thank you, Axel-kun," Jack said quietly, "Now, everybody please take a break and relax quietly."

Everyone let out a long sigh and leaned back against their seats. Wow, who would've thought that being at the psychiatrist would be this tiring... Definitely not Jack. He hung his camera around his neck and took out his cellphone. He strongly needed assistance in this case... He just couldn't trust these psychos. Not after the uproar they caused in the cafeteria... And decisively not after all these _in staint reac shones_ from Riku over Sora.

Immediately after his request call, he heard a knock from the door; he got up and opened it to meet a pair of callous, mulberry eyes that could only belong to a certain work-mate of his.

"Could you please take care of them for me till lunch-time, Rukia-san?"

The girl's eyebrows rose phlegmatically.

"With pleasure."

* * *

"These are also farcically known as _evil, evil, purely evil psychiatric powers..._"

The bearded-man started to sweat. Jack smirked at this. He just_ loved_ scaring people. You could add this to his hobby list. It was something he learned from Ms. Utada by spending so much time with her all these years... How could he ever thank her enough for this? Let's see... He could always take some photos of all the people he scares and pile them into a gift box. Yeah, she'd like that...

He took his camera and clicked a photo of Ansem before the man could retort. He glared at him.

"Look," he started his goodly rehearsed speech, "I know they're mental. I can see that from miles away; it's _this_ obvious. But you can't just expect me to treat them without first letting me know what _exactly_ I have to treat them for."

The blond man glared back at him, gritting his teeth.

"Shouldn't you know better than me? _You're_ the doctor here!"

Jack's eyebrow twitched.

"_Of course_ I'm the doctor!" he hissed forcefully, intimidating the older man until he saw him trying to sink into his seat. "And that's why I am smart enough to have figured out your secret."

Ansem looked baffled.

"Which... How... Who... When..." he mumbled incoherent words.

He paused for a moment, seemingly trying to decide on the next move. He looked over to Jack, and the redhead noticed that, this time, his stupefied expression was a fake one.

"Why, Mr. Greengrass," Ansem started with an aberrant smirk, "I don't understand what you are talking about."

Jack rolled his eyes. He was _so_ expecting this.

"Look," he took out a folder he had been holding all this time and threw it nonchalantly to his guest, "These papers say that you requested help from this hospital because you _thought_ your young apprentices were _suddenly_ going mad. Now, what were the reports supporting this _thought_ again?"

Jack harshly snatched the folder back from the man's lap and started scanning through it.

"The reason you brought Sora-kun here?" he asked with a malignant smirk.

Ansem gulped, attempting to look anything other than alarmed.

"He was having a paranoid personality disorder!" he snapped back. "Always clinging to Roxas, and acting schizophrenic towards the others... He doesn't even recognize his friends anymore! In fact," he tried to think up of an example to uphold his belief, "One day I stopped him from beating poor Axel up with a key... He was screaming something about blaming the boy for not letting him be 'whole' with Roxas and wildly begging the blond to 'enter' him..."

It took exactly five seconds for Ansem to realize what he just said. He widened his eyes and slapped his hand on his mouth. Jack rolled his eyes again.

"And let me guess," he stuck out his tongue at a corner of his lips and placed his index finger on his right cheek, assuming a 'thinking' position, "The next thing you knew is that Riku-kun started to beat Roxas-kun into a pulp."

Ansem frowned. He opened his mouth to say something, but Jack interrupted him quickly.

"And then Axel-kun joined the fight, and Sora-kun started yelling and running around; this attracted Kairi-chan's attention, who started to run around with him. While running around, she accidentally bumped on Namine-chan, knocking her pizza off her hand, thus angering her (we all know how_ addicted_ she is to Italian food). Namine-chan then picked up her sketchbook and started chasing Kairi-chan, but mistakenly crashed against the window and fell. Xigbar-san and Xaldin-san, having witnessed the scene, immediately thought up of a new game; bungee-jumping without a rope. They jumped, their actions having a heavy effect on the sensitive mind of Lexaeus-san, who started having a fit because he gets depressed when people scream louder than him. And of course, he took his anger out on Zexion-san, who at the moment just happened to be releasing his sexual compulsions at Demyx-kun. Poor Demyx-kun got scared, and hid behind Larxene-san, whom, being the overly-protective mother figure, threw her kunai at Zexion-san... But missed, hitting little Alice-chan instead. Alice-chan was knocked out cold, and Mulan-san, whom all this time had been playing twister with her, over-reacted thinking her best friend as dead, so she took hold of that... what's that thing's name again? _Mushu_... and started firing. The fire caught many... _innocent_... victims, as in Olette-chan, Hayner-kun, Pence-kun, Fuu-chan, Rai-kun, Vivi-kun, and Seifer-kun. The flaming gang ran up to Rikku-chan, Yuna-chan, and Yuffie-chan for help, but Rikku-chan, Yuna-chan, and Yuffie-chan, being Rikku-chan, Yuna-chan, and Yuffie-chan, started waving their skirts at them, hoping to put out the fire. But, as you and I know veeeery well, the wind just _keeps, it, blowing_. So in the end, Paine-san, the only person having enough sanity to act aptly, extinguished the fire with the fire-extinguisher."

Ansem literally ran out of words to make a snappy comeback. He just managed to whisper four little words very, very weakly.

"_... How did you know...?_"

Jack let out a deep breath.

"As I said before, these are also farcically known as _evil, evil, purely evil psychiatric powers..._" he repeated droopily, then jolted up, as if awoken abruptly from a dream. "Did I mention how Tifa-san found her long-lost bra in the end?"

Ansem was too exhausted to even shake his head.

Jack continued his tale, "After all was burnt down, she found it under the only thing than remained pretty much unharmed."

Ansem was sweating assiduously by now. Jack got up from the sofa and bit his lips.

"A trapdoor," he whispered.

Without even bothering to look back at the defeated man, the redhead walked up to the door.

"You may go today, Mr. Ansem," he said without turning around, "But next time, you won't leave any question unanswered."

He exited the guest room as the bell rang, signalling the beginning of lunch-break.

* * *

When Jack got back to his office, he noticed that Rukia had left already. And he was anything but surprised to see that everyone in the room started crying at his return.

"Jackie-senseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeei!" screeched Kairi, trying to run up to Jack but failing miserably since she _accidentally_ tripped on his foot.

"That bitch was such a MEANIE! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" sobbed Sora, stomping on Pooh relentlessly.

"Such a SKINFLINT! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" bawled Rikku throwing herself at his feet alongside Kairi.

"Such a NIGGARD! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" wailed Demyx while glomping him into a breathtaking hug.

"BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!" concluded Pooh, as it was instantly smashed into an unrecognizable piece of… rubber.

Jack clicked his camera for the umpteenth time that day.

* * *

_**Authoress's Notes: **__3293 words 391 than Prologue. Lame. Poor Pooh._

**Jack: **We are NOT going to put the disclaimer again. Once is enough.

**R&R!**

_ COMMENT, ASK QUESTIONS, STATE OUT DISCOVERIES, POINT OUT MISTAKES, COMPLAIN!_

**WARN US IF THE STORY IS WAY TOO CONFUSING! TELL US WHERE!**


	3. Chapter 2

_**I EDITED THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS! IF YOU ALREADY READ THEM, YOU CAN SKIP THEM!**_

**TMES:** **IS IT LEGAL TO USE UTADA HIKARU IN THIS STORY?**

* * *

**At the Psychiatrist's  
- Chapter Two -**

King Mickey has always been a curious… _mouse_.

"What did you need the first-aid kit for?"

The masked man in front of him sighed heavily.

**-- FLASHBACK --**

"_Catlyn couldn't bare_... buzz_... constant bashing anymore... _buzz_... picked up her newborn and rifle... zzzzz... Just when_... zzz_...get her revenge... _buzzz_... true enemy appeared! _Zzzz..._ Turns out... _zz_... Rodriguez was a good guy! _Zzzzzz_... Secret like that! _Buzzzzz_..."_

Corybantic yellow eyes met a bunch of sunny colors as the raven-haired girl on the computer screen put down her book and pulled out... _drawings_... of the story she had been reading to her patients. One illustration showed a rabbit with a suit, also known as Rodriguez, ordering around his wife who had a bucket on her head and was cleaning the floor with a mop. The next doodle consisted of Catlyn, the wife, standing with a gun and a baby bunny, making a face that screamed out "HOWDAREYOUCHEATONMEWITHTHATFREELOADERPROSTITUTE!" at Rodriguez.

Not more than five seconds passed before the amber-eyed man felt something wet and warm slip down from the corner of his eyes. His vision slowly started to become hazy... and his head started to hurt a lot... an awful lot... He could clearly feel a pang in his heart. It was, indeed, the most depressing story he had ever heard.

"Daddy..." he heard himself whimper, "Daddy, I'm not feeling ok..."

Hurried footsteps followed his sobs, and when DiZ came into the room, he instantaneously gasped.

"Xehanort!" he shrieked as he hurriedly stumbled over to the chair where Xehanort was sitting. "Oh, Norty-poo, my baby! How did this happen?!"

The other man sniffed harder.

"Daddy… Those dra-drawings..." he hiccupped deplorably, "They... They..."

Now all he saw was red.

"THEY MADE MY EYES BLEED! THOSE FUCKING RABBITS MADE MY EYES BLEED! AND YOU CALL THEM DRAWINGS?! FUCK THOSE FUCKING BUNNIES! I'M SO FUCKING GONNA KILL THEM!

**-- END OF FLASHBACK --**

When DiZ finished the story, King Mickey roughly pushed his gloved hand inside his mouth to prevent any form of laughter to come out. Never, and underline never, laugh when DiZ IS in a bad mood.

"I'm in a bad mood," mumbled DiZ with his British accent (which, by the way, was making the situation even more hilarious and thus worse for King Mickey).

The Mouse King did not dare remove his hand from his mouth. He couldn't – it got stuck. So he took a piece of paper and a pen from DiZ's desk and began writing a reply to the last statement... Too bad that the hand in his mouth was his right one, and he was not left-handed. And to make matters worse, he still had his gloves on, which made it impossible to write anything decipherable. After quite a bit of struggling, he managed to remove his glove using his foot and write a bunch of misshaped but readable letters.

'_Do you want me to kill the "artist?"'_

DiZ smiled as he licked his lips hungrily. He shook his head.

"No," he objected, "I think she can be of use to us and our future plans..."

If he could have, the crowned mouse would've gasped.

'_What do you mean?'_

DiZ's grin grew impossibly wider.

"This girl..." he started dreamily, "She has caught my interest. Jackwell-kun left her with Sora and the others for only half an hour, and look at the incredible effect."

He fished out a remote control and switched on the TV. He took a CD out of his pocket and put it into the DVD player. After it finished loading, it started playing a scene where the infamous artist girl was seen exiting the room. Shortly after, a ruby-haired boy with glassed blue eyes, recognized as Jack, entered the room. Instantly, muffled wails were heard through the speakers, and out of a corner of the screen a redhead girl was seen screeching and running towards him, only to _accidentally_ trip on a foot he _unsuspectingly_ extended. Then suddenly, the camera looked as if it was thrown on the ground, and now the monitor was displaying the image of legs coming out of baggy red shorts stomping endlessly on it.

"Bzzz_... Bitch w_azzzz_... MEANIE! _Zzzz_... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa_zzzzzzzzzzz_...SKINFLINT_zzzzzzzz_... Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa_zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz_!! NIGGARD! _Zzz_... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"_

The camera then decided that it really had enough of being abused, so it cracked, and the video stopped. King Mickey was, duh, scared shitless. What the hell did DiZ find so remarkable about that monster girl?! She was the worst serial killer he has ever seen in his short-lived life! How could she possibly be of use to them?! She's on _their _side! That Utada woman and Jack guy had a lethal weapon under their control...

'_She's too dangerous, and to make it worse, Utada's is in charge of her, and that woman is even _more _dangerous! How can you possibly think of making her pass on our side without getting killed in the process?!'_"

DiZ snickered.

"The exact same way I made _you_ pass on my side… _Mickey-kun_," he stressed his voice when he pronounced his name.

King Mickey slightly cringed. This was the first time DiZ ever called him _that_. He decided that he didn't like the sound of it.

DiZ switched off the television and walked over to the window, as the rays of the sun hit his figure and made his robe shine of an eye-blinding red.

"That night..." he let out another big sigh, "Riku-kun gave in to the darkness..."

King Mickey shivered at the memory... A memory of a night he could never forget. Also because it was the night when he had first set his feet into the cold pavement of the world. And now... he felt weird as he thought of the idea, no, _fact_, that another night like the one he experienced in his dejected past was going to come to life soon. He couldn't help but wonder; Riku had been an easy target to deceive into accepting the vast realm of darkness. But that girl... Rukia...

"_... Will she give in too?"_

As he finally succeeded in freeing his hand from his dry mouth, he laughed savagely. It was a heartless laugh, in the true sense of the word.

After all, it wasn't like he had a heart anyway.

* * *

Somewhere, in a place miles away, Rukia Kuchiki sneezed. All the people near her who just realized her presence backed away immediately.

"I can't believe it," Sora muttered as he and Roxas quickly escaped for the lethal raven girl.

"Believe what?" Roxas asked.

"I can't believe my eyes aren't bleeding!" the brunet forcefully whispered into the blond's ear. "Those drawings sucked big time! They were worse than the penis drawings by the y!Gallery artists!"

"Yeah… wait, WHAT?!" Roxas shouted so loudly that all the people in the cafeteria turned their attention to him. "YOU VISIT THE YAOI GALLERY TO WATCH PENIS DRAWINGS?!"

An 'Oooooooh!' was heard throughout the audience.

Sora widened his eyes and blushed heavily.

"NO!" He shouted back. "I JUST HAPPENED TO STUMBLE ON THEM!"

An unbelieving 'my ass!' was heard at this, and Riku let out a frustrated sigh.

Roxas was nearly hyperventilating, "AND YOU THINK I'M GONNA BELIEVE YOU?!"

Sora couldn't hold it anymore. He deposited all the energy he had in his last, desperate scream, his sapphire eyes poisoned with tears.

"I'M HOMOPHOBIC!"

A 'HUH!' was released by the population of the lunchroom.

"… And that's how Riku lost the love of his life and died with an aching heart, it's _Leon_."

Jack licked his lips.

"Maybe, as his doctor, I should help him or something. What do you think, Squall-san?" he asked, not noticing Leon's hand forming into a fist. "I can't just let him die; Ms. Utada will have my head."

"Let the nurses do the job," Cloud, the newcomer at their table (his previous seat being now occupied with an ominous looking Paine), commented. "I'm sure they'll take good care of him."

Jack sighed.

"_That _is what I'm worried about."

* * *

As Jack expected, the group of patients turned into the office even more messed up than before. Jane had consumed ten notepads with her pink gel-pen; the teary-eyed Saix, who had taken up Sephiroth's seat in the cafeteria, was massaging his ass; Larxene was 'Mwahahahaha!'ing and waving around her kunai's; Lexaeus was sulking even more in the corner; Hercules's arm was completely broken; Maleficent's nose was... well, _it wasn't there_; Aerith's nose grew even longer and was now stuck in Paine's_… whatever _piece of clothing she had on. Cloud, leaning on a corner far away from Aerith, complimented himself inwardly for having changed his seat.

Jack took another photo of them, in case St. Brutus wanted more updated information about the conditions of its future patients. He got bored with always working with the same people, so he pretended that Homophobe, Bleached-Hair Guy (who wasn't present anyway), Anne Frank, Girl in White, Ginger-ass, and Blondie **(1) **didn't exist. Instead, the tip of his index finger pointed at the first guy that he saw when these patients were assigned to him.

"'Morning Hayner-kun!"

Hayner's idiotic grin was still stuck to his face.

"'MORNING JACK-SENSEEEEEEEEEI!"

_Thanks goodness he doesn't call me Jackie_, thought optimistically Jack.

"Hmm..." he tried to think of something to keep him busy, "Let's talk about your life, Hayner-kun."

"Ooooook!" exclaimed Hayner. "Soooo, I live in this Twilight Town place, where it's always sunset, right?"

"Right," nodded Jack.

"And it's a great place to live in, you know?!" piped up a gorilla-looking guy; his nametag read_ Raijin_.

"_Yeah_, I_ of all people should know," _Jack thought with irritation.

"_I_'m telling the story!" cried Hayner impatiently. "Anyway... this town's really cool cuz it got skateboards lyin' everywhere, and you can use 'em whenever you want!"

Jack smiled; he loved skateboarding... although he found it difficult to see Hayner on a skateboard. He managed to picture the blond riding one and immediately crashing with a wall the next second.

"Cool place, Twilight Town..." continued Hayner dreamily, staring into space. "It got the best sea-salt ice-cream ever..."

Jack raised his eyebrow.

"I thought they were popsicles, not ice-cream."

"Why, I don't see any difference between 'em," replied Hayner raising his eyebrow too.

Olette heaved her hand. Jack nodded at her, noting down her manners; maybe an outcast among all these disturbed people/mice/ducks/dogs/monkeys/etc...

"I want to talk with Hayny too!" she proposed. "And with Roxie and Pencie since we live at the same place and we're BFF!"

She glanced at the mentioned ones with eyes full of dangerous intentions. They started to sweat.

"_All my hopes, melt awaaaaaaaaaay_..." sang Jack to himself, remembering the tune of a song Ms. Utada used to sing to him. "OK."

* * *

"THAT WAS THE MOST BORING BULLSHIT EVER!"

Roxas banged his hands on the table so hard that it broke. Axel took advantage of the blond's rage to show off all his burning loyalty to him.

"YAH, RIGHT!" he agreed, breaking another table. "OLETTE IS SOME MOTHER FUCKIN' BITCH!"

Roxas started to imitate the hated girl's voice.

"_And then we started our independent studies about the six wonders of Twilight Town, and we researched about BALLS coming out the wall! Roxie got hit by a thousand BALLS, didn't you Roxie?_ GYAH!"

"_Rai's mum sent him back to kindergarten since he counted fourteen stairs instead of thirteen, you know?! _I COUNTED RIGHT, YOU KNOW?!" Rai was waving his arms in distress, trying to hit anyone nearby.

Hayner's reaction was just as vigorous, "_And then Hayny, remember when you thought you saw your twin brother waving at you from the fountain? You're so stupid! _I'M NOT STOOOOOOOOOOOPID!"

"_And Pencie thought he saw clones of himself dressed up like girls in the subway! Not that he doesn't look a transvestite now_..." Pence joined in. "NOW _THAT_ SOUNDS FUN!"

Seifer's temperature rose so much that the water he poured himself evaporated.

"_Seify actually believed in the ghost train so much that he ran up and down the railway naked trying to seduce the driver! _JUST WHEN THE HELL DID I DO _THAT_!"

"Saw _her_..." muttered Fuu while pointing angrily at Namine.

The blonde looked actually emotional for the first time.

"_You_ saw _me_ running 'round _naked_?"

Fuu's face turned pale, "Behind curtains!"

Namine was fuming even more, "_You_ saw_ me _running 'round _naked _behind the curtains?!"

"Abandoned Mansion!" Fuu was now rapidly shaking her head.

"_You_ saw_ me _running 'round _naked _behind the curtains in the Abandoned Mansion?!"

"NOT NAKED!" cried desperately Fuu.

Namine gritted her teeth, "How then? _Half-naked_?"

Fuu fainted; those were too many words for her to bear...

"... And so that girl with silver hair fainted," concluded Leon, not even bothering to correct his name.

"Cool," replied Jack, "So that's the Twilight Town gang."

His notepad was full of black ink. He was trying to finish his work at dinnertime, once and for all. He didn't really want to spend his work-time worrying about balls coming out the wall, thirteen stairs, watery twins, cross-dressed clones, railway prostitutes, and... Namine, who, by some strange means, was the seventh wonder of Twilight Town.

"_What's so wonderful about her anyway?_" thought lazily Jack, as he stared deeply at Namine's blue eyes, which were, for an instant, looking at him too. "_She spends the whole day stuffing her mouth with pasta and… drawing whatever on her sketchbook and… talking with a strange accent and… always doing _that_ gesture with her hands! _**(2)**"

Larxene smiled evilly when she noticed the only sane person in the cafeteria was looking at her best friend, who had decided to sit with the TT Gang so that she could manage to steal their plates overloaded with food.

"Wooooooot, Kairi, looks like Namine's got a new admirer, who, by the way, happens to be _your_ Prince Charming!"

Kairi widened her eyes so much that it beat Yen Sid's record.

"This is looooooooove..."

"Alice, could you effin' stop saying the same thing over and over again?" asked Mulan trying her best to sound anything but rude.

"But she got it right!" huffed Jane as Yuna and Rikku started singing another of their favorite Kelly Clarkson songs. "I mean, our problem is that we all suffer in our sentimental lives! I can give you examples if you want!"

Yuffie joined them at the table, "Spit it out!"

Jane glared at her, and then she started her speech.

"You see," she showed them a very complicated diagram that contained all their names and arrows linking them together, "Riku loves Sora, but Sora is homophobic, so he doesn't love anyone, unless you count Roxas, but that's just brotherly love, and I highly doubt he supports incest relationships (he ain't gay anyway). Kairi loves Jack, but Jack loves Namine-"

"That's not true!" cried Kairi.

Jane ignored her.

"-Who loves her sketchbook and Italian food. Then... Tidus loves Yuna, Yuna loves Tidus, Wakka loves Selphie, Selphie loves Wakka."

At a table not very far away from theirs, Wakka sneezed all over Selphie, who furiously started to beat him with her rope.

"Daisy loves Donald, but Donald loves that gorilla... Kerchak's little girl... whatever her name is! Goofy loves Pluto, but Pluto loves King Mickey, but the Mouse King got his heart stolen by Queen Minnie, who is secretly dating Dale, who recently started thinking very incest stuff about Cip, who trades his porno magazines with Jiminy Cricket's photos of naked Goofy. Jiminy is deeply in love with Pinocchio, but his arch enemy, Mastro Gep_pedo_...- ahem, Geppetto, is a big obstacle that is blocking his path to accomplish his wet dreams. Pinocchio, instead, doesn't want to have anything to do with them; all he thinks about is Monstro and vice versa."

The girls were staring at Jane with mouths hung open for so long that they had started drooling. Since Jane was giving her back to Jack, the redhead had a false feeling that Kairi had given her virus to the others and now they were all drooling at _him_.

"Then of course we come to Leon, who loves Aerith," they looked at Leon and Aerith, sitting with a distance of one mile between them and not even looking at each other, then went back to listen to Jane with their eyebrows quirked. "But Aerith loves Cloud, who can't take his eyes away from Yuffie-"

Yuffie burped all her pasta all'arabiatta out.

"Eww! That's gross!"

"-Who, as everyone knows, nourishes very deep feelings for Tifa-"

"How in the world...!"

Red in face, Yuffie found herself under six pairs of unbelieving eyes. Tifa was out of the scenery; she was too worried about her-

"-Beloved nametag, which she suspects is hiding inside Paine's mouth," confirmed Jane, pointing at Tifa who had her head inside the grey-haired girl's... well, you can imagine the scene. "Then there's Cid, who completely ignores Merlin's feelings about him because he's too interested in staring at Larxene's curves-"

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

Larxene's kunai raced like a boomerang; by a millimeter it missed Jane's head, and it rushed through Hercules and Meg, who stopped making out. The brunette screamed and jumped on Simba, who roared at the sudden attack and started galloping wildly around the room. Meanwhile, the kunai hit Demyx's sitar, and the Melodious Nocturne, boiling with rage, blasted away the first person he found under his nose, Zexion, and sent him and the kunai flying straight on respectively Sora's and Roxas's heads, making Axel throw his chakrams furiously across the room. Simba, with Meg on his back, hit square face one of the chakrams and with fangs hanging out, collided with a pasta-full mouthed Namine.

Jack failed to suppress a desperate cry.

* * *

**(1) **Respectively Sora, Riku, Kairi, Namine, Axel, and Roxas. You remember these nicknames, don't you?

**(2) **Have you noticed too? She brings her hands together and inclines them towards you… like in the next-to-final cutscene in KHII, where she does this gesture and says, "Now we can be together again!" or something like that to Roxas. And about the accent, I hope you understood that Jackie made it up just to find an excuse to hate her.

_**Authoress's Notes: **__2939 words, 37 than Prologue. Kind of short – that's because I made it quite straightforward. Ah, the simplicity…_

_ COMMENT, ASK QUESTIONS, STATE OUT DISCOVERIES, POINT OUT MISTAKES, COMPLAIN!_

**WARN US IF THE STORY IS WAY TOO CONFUSING! TELL US WHERE!**


	4. Chapter 3

**Jack: ****PLEASE BOTHER TO FLAME HER FOR ANY REASON, HOWEVER STUPID. UNLESS IT'S TOO STUPID TO EVEN BOTHER TO FLAME ABOUT.**

**TMES: **I'm giving them credits for _Wikipedia_. Just love all its… fakeness.

**Jack: **BTW,credits from now on are in _italic underlined_. I'M NOT A GARY-SUE! I DARE YOU TO CONTRADICT ME!

* * *

**At the Psychiatrist**

**-Chapter Three-**

One of the many things at which Hikaru Utada was uniquely talented at is giving orders.

_"Go. To. Bed."_

In fact, with just three words (even Phil didn't have the courage to argue), she sent every patient to their rooms, bodies covered entirely with blankets and eyes shining in the dark with fear that she might peek through their bedroom doors' keyholes and start laughing like Orochimaru. Her grievous face would be as pale as a ghost fugitive of exorcism, and her vampire teeth would be so sharp that they could gouge out the roughest of flesh and betray their complexion with their own blood. But the most traumatic thing would be her decision to not use any sort of violence, because she would just decide to send them all to hell with a simple snap of her fingers.

Send the kids to bed right after dinner. No videogames, no TV, no staying up late. Right-o.

Despite this, various patients were outside their boarding territory. Zexion, for example, who had been thrown with the delicacy of an elephant by an infuriated Demyx. Sora, who had been hit by Zexion. Roxas, who had been hit by a kunai (thrown with the same delicacy by the same Demyx). Namine, who had been hit by Simba and his fangs (and a screaming Meg on his back). Axel, who said to the nurses that he was hit by his own chakrams (the additional note being that they were highly _unconvinced_). And finally, of course, Riku, who had fainted earlier at midday.

Also, note that the head of the hospital herself, Utada Hikaru, set up the room arrangements. Namine was to be sharing a room with Zexion, Sora undoubtedly with Riku, and, _duh_, Roxas with Axel. Pathetic.

"Pathetic," Jack commented with acerbic disposition as he and King Mickey made their way to the boarding rooms. "You actually expect me to believe that, all this time, from when I left you with Rukia-san up 'til now, you've been to the bathroom?"

King Mickey shrugged torpidly.

"And _you_ actually expected me to stay in the room with that girl showing up drawings that have the ability to turn you blind?"

"Don't you use that tone with me," Jack replied with a composed voice disguising the feelings in his words.

A large and unbefitting smirk decorated the mouse's face.

"Or else?" he lampooned simply.

"Or else," continued the redhead with the same attitude, ignoring the other's rude behavior, "I could do something really nasty to _you_… and your _friends_… and your _mentor_."

"Hmm…" King Mickey didn't seem in any way affected by his threat. "Do as you wish."

Jack nodded impassively, "Alright."

They kept walking quietly, neither of them seeming to consider the presence of the other. The sight of two of them walking together side by side along the white, wide, not-so-crowded corridors with occasional colourful posters was just… _wrong_. But then again, everything was wrong about King Mickey, thought Jack. It wasn't like he had never seen a talking animal (especially when he's been spending a great many years shopping in the _Moogle's Attic_ here in Traverse Town); in fact, there were many variations of creatures from talking to non-talking, white to black, small to big all over the world. The trouble was that… shoot him, he didn't _know_ what the trouble was. Maybe he felt terribly awkward in the presence of the King because the guy was _oversized_. And _so were _Queen Minnie, Donald, and Goofy. The rest of them he could deal with, but this group of queer beings chagrined him to no end – beauty was deeper than skin, in their case. Next idiosyncrasy being that the mouse had a sense of familiarity hanging around him.

The passageway was becoming livelier in tone as they proceeded. At last, the figure of an opaque swinging door came to view. Jack pushed the door open, inviting King Mickey to enter first. The chamber they entered looked like a commodious, circular lounge; mahogany velvet sofas were arranged along the room's circumference with supplementary footstools and coffee tables of equal exorbitant quality. In the centre, there was an enormous gate-leg table with cushioned stools around it,

"Either you rest in her, or go straight to your room," Jack pointed to the stairways at the back of the lounge. "Meanwhile, I'll go check up on your injured friends. Is that OK with you, Mickey-sama?"

King Mickey was too busy in concluding that he genuinely hated his name to attempt a reply.

* * *

"_Has anyone ever tried to put Namine and Zexion in the same sentence?"_

This was the first thought Jack had when he set foot in the room where Namine and Zexion were lying on their beds. Oh, there's a sentence! '_When I entered the room, I saw Namine and Zexion lying on their respective beds.' _Perfect. He quickly wrote that in his notepad. Then… '_Suddenly, Namine opened her eyes at a ridiculous width and started waving her arms around while singing "_You're my Cuppycake_." _Good one. '_Unfortunately, she hit Zexion, who woke up brusquely and shook his head around blinking, possibly trying to recognize his surroundings.'_

"Where am I?" the lilac-haired young men asked to no one in particular. "Why do I smell pasta?!"

Namine had now started laughing like a maniac.

"GO BACK TO SLEEP, BASTARD! GWAHAHAH!"

Zexion directed his semi-dormant eyes towards Namine and, with the voice of someone who didn't have a nose at all, slurred, "Why?"

"WE'RE GONNA HAVE LOADS OF FOOD! GWAHAHAH! WE'RE GONNA EAT LOADS OF ITALIAN FOOD! WE'RE GONNA HAVE A BIG DINNER! GO TO SLEEP SO WE CAN COOK YOU AND EAT YOU ALIVE! WE'RE HUNGRY!"

'_No wonder she has eating disorders. And she said they're hungry.' _That should sum it up.

"Who's hungry?" Jack asked.

Zexion turned to him. His eyes were now completely blank.

"_The 13__th__ Order_," he replied with his drowsy voice.

Namine instantly stopped laughing. Jack paused the curvy movement of his pen and made a quick reconnaissance of Zexion, his eyes narrowed.

"They're a bad group," the doctor managed to murmur in the most careful way.

As in a trance like her roommate, Namine climbed out of her bed and treaded softly over to Zexion's. Jack didn't stop her.

"Bad or good," she commented, her voice magically turning normal, "I don't know. And I don't wanna know."

Jack licked his lips, "How so?"

"Because, asshole," replied Namine with indifference, "They're a group of cannibals who want to eat you whole. So stop licking your lips. It's fuckin' disgusting."

Like hell he was going to stop licking his lips. It wasn't his fault if they were always dry. How could anyone survive without licking their lips, especially if they were dry? And besides, eating lasagne at 10 'o clock in the morning was a more disgusting action than licking your lips. No, wait, how was licking your lips disgusting in the first place? If something were to be disgusting, it would be having your tremendously blonde hair simple and un-styled. It would be having your repulsively long eyelashes overlapping your repellently azure eyes all the time. It would be keeping your lips always pursed into a straight and expressionless line 24/7. It would be wearing your pyjamas in public. It would be being so slim that you could be easily passed as a spaghetto or two glued together. It would be having your pyjamas of a nauseating white color and of an equally nauseating size. It would be showing off your… Crap.

"I'm not tasty," Jack frowned as he pushed away all his prior thoughts about Namine's… body.

"They don't care, they want to eat you anyway," snorted the girl, oblivious to her physician's previously probing navy eyes. "To that end, they're desperately searching for something."

Jack sighed.

"What?"

The blonde started to smirk, and snuck her hands around Zexion's neck. Jack immediately fished out his cellphone from his pocket.

"_Kingdom Hearts_," snoozed Namine as she threw herself on Zexion.

Several nurses rushed through the door and into the room, running swiftly to the blonde lunatic and attempting to stop her from eating her victim. If Jack hadn't known Ms. Utada since 8th Grade, he would've thought that this was an impossible situation for five or six fragile little nurses to deal with. Fortunately, in his case, he knew his superior well enough to believe that she'd never employ a nurse, doctor, cleaning-lady, garbage-man, etc. without first being sure that they had taken karate lessons. If they hadn't, she'd supply the training facilities (luckily not being present in them herself or everyone would have been dead by now). And if they couldn't make it, they would have to forget the job.

Jack covered his ears and closed his eyes, refusing to absorb the violent sounds and images in front of him.

"TAKE THIS, BIATCH! HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Namine instantly blacked out and harshly fell on the floor. Jack tottered to Zexion and rested a reassuring hand on the pale boy's shoulder.

"Don't worry, Zexion-kun," he beamed at Zexion with one of his most genial smiles, "I'll send Demyx-kun here first thing tomorrow morning, okay?"

He then shot a look of impure antipathy at the unconscious girl and ran out of the room.

* * *

Sora won't talk to Riku. Riku won't talk to Sora. This never-ending cycle was beginning to bother both boys, but no one seemed to prevent it from prolonging. Riku wanted to, but couldn't find any way to do so. Usually, in cases like this (which happened all the time between him and his best friend Mickey), he'd mentally consult all the movies, reality shows, and books he watched and read to understand how to act when you wanted to reconcile with someone. With Mickey, those solutions never worked nor were needed since they always made peace in the most abrupt, peculiar and unexpected way (like that one time when he was super angry at Mickey because he wouldn't give him a cookie, but calmed down when he saw that, in the end, he gave it to a very persisting Sora; Riku didn't have any reason to raise his wrath then, so he went up to Mickey and said that he had done the right thing). But Sora wasn't Mickey, therefore they weren't best friends (_boyfriends?_ Go figure!) and Riku highly doubted that if he gave Mickey a cookie Sora would come up to him and tell him that he did the right thing.

Riku widened his sheer aquamarine eyes.

That's it! Person A is angry at person B, so person B gives a cookie to a third-party person (C) so that person A comes up to person B and tells him/her that he/she did the right thing and they're friends again. So… what are the variations? _Mickey is angry at Riku, so Riku gives a cookie to a third-party person (Sora) so that Mickey comes up to Riku and tells him that he did the right thing and they're friends again._ A voice deep into the deepest deeps of his very deep mind told him that something was wrong with this speculation. Then what about: _Riku is angry at Sora, so Sora gives a cookie to a third-party person (Mickey) so that Riku comes up to Sora and tells him that he did the right thing and they're friends again_? It sounded realistic at first, but how was he going to convince Sora to give a cookie to Mickey? Maybe he should replace Mickey with someone else - someone Sora would die to give a cookie to, or possibly someone who would die to have a cookie… Namine?

"_YOU'RE MY HONEYBUN, SUGARPLUM, PUMPKY-YUMPKY-YUMP-KIN, YOU'RE MY SWEETY PIE! YOU'RE MY CUPPYCAKE-"_

Yep, that was definitely Namine he was hearing from the other room.

"She's high on amphetamines again."

Sora seemed to talk to himself rather than Riku. The silver-haired boy took this occasion to his advantage.

"What?" he asked, intending to start a conversation that would (propitiously) lead to the friendship that never was.

Sora sighed.

"Long-term amphetamine abuse can induce psychological effects like mental states resembling schizophrenia," he stated very formally.

Riku gaped at the brunet; he never knew that Sora and Jack-sensei were related. Before he could reply in any way, Namine's high-pitched voice was heard again.

"_GO BACK TO SLEEP, BASTARD! GWAHAHAH!"_

Sora dilated his eyes towards the ceiling.

"… And, in some cases …" he continued bleakly, while black, clambered marks started to become visible under his eyes, "… It may generate_ insomnia_."

The door hastily opened with a _BANG!_ and closed again with a second _BANG!_. The two boys, scared shitless, made out the familiar figure that just entered to have carmine red locks flying with the wind and intense indigo eyes full of anxiety gazing from behind them.

"Riku…" Jack panted heavily and sprinted over to the said boy, "You're alive!"

Riku thought that if it wasn't an issue of his, it was some supernatural power Jack-sensei was controlling him with, making him blink his eyes every time they talked.

"Say wha?" he mumbled, perplexed.

Jack sunned him with a heartening smile, "And I who thought that the nurses had killed you already!"

Riku regretted for asking him that question. Next time, he'd keep his mouth shut and make other people keep their mouths shut as well, so that that bitch of a fate won't decide to make their every word come to life.

"_Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiku-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!"_

A number of nurses rushed past Jack and violently glomped the mentioned boy. Riku thought he lost several limbs at the process, and it amazed him, almost in a fascinating way, the fact all he felt at the moment could actually be described with a four-lettered simple word which began with 'PA' and ended with 'IN'. Figures that he'll always _platonically_ love Jack-sensei for saving his (and that shitty little bastard of Roxas's) ass every time with his camera, despite his very frustrating and eerie power to make people blink.

"Ladies," Jack cleared his throat while giving the dirty-minded nurses a gentleman smile, "May I kindly ask you to leave this room? Ms. Utada will be visiting any moment."

Jack took another photo of the nurses, this time with their faces showing the utmost look of excruciating horror.

"I'm sorry," Jack apologized after all the terror-stricken nurses had exited, "I had to bring about the name of my boss, or you would've died. So it may rejoice you to know that it was a lie. And… well," Jack grinned sheepishly at the two, scratching his hair, "I got to go. See you tomorrow, Sora-kun, Riku-kun."

* * *

Ms. Utada will be terribly happy to glue this new photo on the blank page beside that picture of Ansem I already gave her, thought Jack.

Next room? Ah.

The couple of the couples. The dream of every matchmaker. Every shounen-ai/yaoi fangirl's favorite meal. Jackwell Greengrass Productions are proud to present: _AKUROKUTION_!

… If only this enthusiasm didn't go ignored by the protagonists of the show.

"I still don't think it's the kunai that's making my eye wiggle!"

"But your eye _never_ wiggled before!"

"Actually," Roxas contracted his sapphire eyes in order to focus on his memories, "Now that you mention it, I think that I did feel it squirming like a worm one time or two…"

Axel seemed to be surprised to hear this new information. In any way, Jack was; eye-wiggles? And no, it wasn't as if Jack never heard of anyone whose eyes wiggled (_'Oh my gosh! Eyes! They wiggle! Wow! How gross!'_). What stunned him was that Roxas said that his _eye, singular,_ the one that was hit by the ever-popular kunai, a.k.a. his right eye, was the only one wiggling. The kunai had not stabbed the eye; it had merely made contact with it with its unsharpened end. Eye wiggling was, in most circumstances, a disease.

"What about your other eye?" Axel inquired, inclining his head towards the petite blond, attempting to have a good look at his left eye.

Roxas blinked, "Oh, that. I never told you before, did I?" he grinned with great pride. "It's made of glass."

Jack retreated more into the shadows of the corner of the room until he was sure he had camouflaged himself completely, but still being aware of his two patients' actions.

"Wow! It looks real," continued the redhead at the other side of the room as he traced his thumb under Roxas's glass eye, "It's the same color of the original one."

The blond nodded enthusiastically, "I know! Mr. Ansem gave it to me that time when that Riku-bastard took Sora's key and… stuff. Remember?"

Axel's vibrant green eyes darkened until they turned into a somber shade of emerald. Jack could only presume that Axel was going to beat the shit out of Riku for having used Sora's key to… do something to Roxas's eye (and he didn't feel like knowing what it was that he did). Roxas seemed to understand his best friend's intentions too. He promptly started to speak at a speed, as if to cover up his earlier words.

"Er, to be honest, I like this new eye, you know!" he exclaimed in a fretted attempt. "It's more comfortable than the other one! It doesn't wiggle! It looks cuter! It looks better! It never cries! It will never need any lenses! It never decays! It will never catch any eye-disease! It's fluorescent! It can look clearly even in the dark! It's like Mad-Eye Moody's eye! It's cooler that the Byakugan and the Sharingan put together! It–"

Axel reached to him with his long, emaciated-looking arms and austerely pushed the younger male into his chest.

"Just…" the towering man whispered with ardor into the soft dirty blond spikes pressing themselves to his face.

His graceful palms landed softly on each side of the waist of the porcelain creature finding shelter into his body, bestowing protection upon him.

"Just… shut the fuck up, _Roxas_."

Roxas instantly abandoned the trail of his voice and befell immobile. He whimpered.

"… Ok."

* * *

_**Authoress's Notes: **__ 112 more than the Prologue, 3014 words. Shorter than expected since I cut the last part and added it to the beginning of the next chap…_

**TMES: **Credits go to a few people. _Jo_, I love you for making _Dumbledore_ gay, but I hate you for not mentioning so in the books. Whatever, thanks anyway. _Mr. Director _(sorry, forgot your name), you did a great job with the HP fifth movie in comparison to that fourth piece of shit. _Mr. Director Gore Something-inski_, you rock big time, and so does Jack Sparrow. Thanks to all of you for inspiring me. Oh, by the way, I love you too, _Leo_.

**Jack: **Leo _who? _Your ex? Or Leotordo (Pigwidgeon's name translated in Italian)? I hope the latter… Either him or the ninja turtle.

COMMENT, ASK QUESTIONS, STATE OUT DISCOVERIES, POINT OUT MISTAKES, COMPLAIN!

**WARN US IF THE STORY IS WAY TOO CONFUSING! TELL US WHERE!**


	5. Chapter 4

**TMES: **_I'm so sorry if I didn't thank anyone for reviewing and alerting in the prev chap! I posted from the Internet Point, so I had to do things quick… Anyway, thank you all! YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH IT MEANS TO ME, sob!_

**Jack: ****We've decided to forget the idea of a detailed ZeMyx, since Mad Shell admits not being an expert in this particular pairing (she doesn't like it a lot either). But compensation will be included, don't worry.****I know you were expecting more romance, but remember that patience is always awarded.**

**TMES: **I have to make a confession. About the Leo mentioned in the last chapter. I was talking about...

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… _Leonardo da Vinci_!

**Jack: **Who, by everyone's surprise (yah right), also turns out to be gay, just like all the other people you love. Excluding me.

* * *

**At the Psychiatrist**

**-Chapter Four-**

_When Jack left, Riku immediately climbed out of his bed and went straight to his brunet roommate and tenderly placed Sora's hands into his. The beryl-eyed boy yelped at the contact and promptly flinched away from Riku, but the older boy recaptured his soft palms without any struggle._

"_You never sleep at nights…" Riku whispered to Sora as he steadily inched towards him, "And all you want is to fall asleep at the end of the day, to black out your mind from every hurtful speck of light…"_

_Riku's thumb gently started to caress the back of Sora's hand, while the boy, still sitting on his bed, bit his lips. At the throbbing pain, little tears started to gather in the corner of his eyes._

"_You just want all this sleeplessness to fade away, so that you can finally rest in peace… don't you?" Riku murmured as he brought his hands up to cup the younger boy's face._

_Sora's eyes started to discharge all the misery he had been masking behind his past façade._

"_Yes…" he spoke with the tiny thread of voice that was left in him. "I want that… but… you can't give it to me."_

"_I know," agreed Riku without any sign of anger or hatred lingering in his words._

_He moved his right thumb delicately across Sora's tender profile, wiping away every stream of salty water that dared to trail across it._

"_I know…" repeated Riku with a pang in his throat. "It's tradition for the prince to kiss his beloved and thus free her from her profound sleep forever, but… if I were to kiss you…"_

_Sora rested his head on Riku's warm and inviting chest, in which a heart that long ago forgot how to beat started to pound again from its long-lived state of inertia._

"… I would never fall asleep again."

_But he fell asleep anyway._

* * *

'_Sunday, August 11th, 2007… Why did I agree on taking psychiatry as a career? I don't even have my Sundays free. "A psychiatrist should always be there for his or her patients." It didn't sound so terrible at first, but now I'm changing my mind. It's a good thing that Ms. Utada agreed to let this group (let's call it the KH Group for obvious reasons) out in the garden for breakfast; they honestly need some air. And it's a good thing too that Roxas's got both of his eyes tied, in case it has some _hidden abilities_; we don't want another "Pooh-incident" like the one that happened yesterday before lunch, do we?'_

"What do you mean by 'Pooh-incident'?"

"WAH!"

Roxas frowned as Jack shrieked with fright and immediately closed his laptop, preventing him from reading it.

"Roxas!" he yelped, glaring at the blond. "You're supposed to have your eyes tied up!"

The redhead instantly took the piece of black cloth hanging on Roxas's shoulder and covered his eyes with it.

"But…" Roxas flinched as his doctor tightly tied a knot behind his head, "Why both my eyes? Why not just one? I can't see a thing!"

"Oh… Whatever," groaned Jack with a surrendering tone, "I'll just cover one."

To Roxas's surprise, he covered his left eye. Was he stupid? Shouldn't he cover the injured eye? The eye hit by that bloody kunai? The one that irritatingly wiggled every five minutes? When he tried to protest, Jack silenced him and told him that if he didn't keep the blindfold on and his mouth shut, he'd be sleeping outside the hospital with Sora.

Roxas reluctantly hopped back to the tree where Axel, Sora, Riku, Namine, and Kairi were seating, devouring their meals. Axel pulled him by his hand to an empty space beside him and placed his arm around him. Roxas shrugged; he'll never understand why Axel was so fond of him. He liked to call him his 'best friend' only because he didn't want to give Sora that satisfaction. To be honest, he didn't really like Axel that much as a friend because they never had any experience in the field of 'best friendship' like, for instance, Riku and Mickey. Those two were best friends and did what best friends did; even if they didn't hang around much, they talked as if they were twins, they argued, they made peace, they could read each other's minds, they knew what the other felt… they acted as if they were _connected_. But he never got _how_ exactly they were connected. Excuse him for pointing out that Riku was a human and Mickey was an outsized _mouse _– more like a _stuffed doll_ or something. Still, they were like two telepathically connected brothers.

With Axel it was a different story. No… wait; it would be a different story with _anyone_. Roxas never really believed in the concept of friendship. Outwardly, everyone could be friends. Like Xigbar and Xaldin over there who were trying to have a _friendly_ talk with that poor little bird that was trying to escape from their suffocating hold. In Roxas's opinion, _real_ friendship didn't _really_ exist. Because if you were _real _friends, you were bound to follow the rules of "always" and "never": you were supposed to _never_ lie to each other, _never_ be angry at each other (and if you were, you were _always_ supposed to make peace), _always_ tell each other everything, and _always_ be ready to die for each other. Even Riku and Mickey had flows in their friendship. They lied to each other; Mickey had _always_ hated Riku's bleached hair, but he _always_ said to his friend that he loved it. They were angry at each other; Riku is _always_ angry with Mickey since he _never _wants to give him his cookies and Mickey is angry at Riku because he was slowly drifting away to Sora, but they _always_ smiled to each other pretending it's OK, so they _never__really_ made peace. They didn't _always_ tell each other everything; Riku _never_ told Mickey about that time when he agreed with Sora that mice weren't supposed to domesticate dogs like Pluto and Mickey _never_ told Riku that he agreed with Roxas that Riku would be better off without looking like that Prince Charming guy from Shrek. And finally, Roxas was sure that they would _never_ be ready to die for each other. He didn't have anything to support this assumption with, but… he just knew. And anyway, it wasn't like _he_ would ever decide to die for anyone, let alone Axel. And he'd _never_ believe Axel if he told him that he'd die for him one day or two.

Conclusion? Reality is a bigass bag full of stinking cow shit… The only pair of _real_ friends Roxas knew of was Namine and Italian food; they never lied to each other, they were never angry at each other (so they didn't need to make peace), they always told each other everything, and they were always ready to die for each other.

Axel rested his head on Roxas shoulder and his fingers started to draw little circles on his arm, but the blond ignored him and instead paid attention to what Namine and Kairi were arguing about.

"Larxene was lying!" Namine huffed impatiently, clearly annoyed with the subject of their dispute. "Why should I like that asshole? He was the fucktard who ordered those whores to hit me hard last night! All I did was having a break-down, like a fucking mental… which is the reason I'm here _for_!"

She bit hard into her bresaola sandwich.

"Stop insulting him!" screeched the cherry-head girl.

"Fine!" groaned Namine exasperatedly. "At least we got this settled; he's all yours, I don't like him, end of the story!"

Kairi _'hmph!_'ed and strode away from them.

"Idiot…" muttered Namine as she picked up a plastic glass and a bottle of Coca Cola. "She actually thinks I'm _straight_…"

The four boys gawked at her, horror drawn on their faces. Namine poured herself some coke.

"The only things I'll ever love are Italian restaurants and my sketchbook. Even a retard like Anne Frank should know that."

Everyone let out a breath of relief as Namine gulped down her coke.

* * *

Aurora smoothly dropped herself on a settee between two chairs where two other girls, much shorter and plain looking than her, were seated. They were identical twins – they had the same candid, refined skin, the same simply combed, midnight, short hair, the same elegant white dress long up to their knees, and the same pale, bare little feet. The only difference was found in their states. The girl who sat to Aurora's right was sleeping, her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open, as if she had been cursed to fall into an incessant, deep sleep. The other girl, on the other hand, was wide-awake, although she seemed to be only semi-conscious. Her eyes were half lidded, and her eyes were wholly black and devoid of sentiment.

Aurora curved her lips into an excessively fake smile.

"Let's watch the telly!" she exclaimed, as she probed a remote control from nowhere. "What do you say, girls?"

None of them responded.

The television in front of the three girls turned on, but the screen remained black.

"Oops," Aurora slapped her perfectly manicured fingers on her cheek, feigning an apologetic pout, "Looks like we'll have to _hear_ today's episode rather than _watch_ it."

The volume was increased to the highest, and instantaneously, a murmur was heard.

"_I dreamed about Kairi on the beach, too."_

A rather girly voice complained, _"Again!?"_

The previous voice, which certainly belonged to Riku, Aurora noticed, hesitated before replying.

"_But only for a small moment, since she started to grow a year older and talking to Namine using her telepathic powers-"_

"_What's she say?"_ an interested female voice interrupted, this time less girly than the other one.

"_Nothing important..."_ Riku waved her off. _"Just something about music in time and not really liking Sora because he's gay..."_

A different male voice, which Aurora recognized as Axel's, cursed at Kairi. Riku continued his story.

_"And then Namine drew a circular stairway on her sketchbook where Sora and Donald and Goofy were running around like three little _pigs_ and _killing_-"_

A third male voice gasped **(1)**, and hurried footsteps followed. The voiced that gasped told Kairi not to worry about him, and Riku resumed the tale, a little irritated by the interruption.

_"They were..._ exterminating shadows... _and then they reached some floor where Sora meets this really girly looking guy..."_

"_Excuse us?!"_ Aurora heard Marluxia and Sephiroth shriek with frustration.

_"Sora was sorta fighting him, and I went to save his ass..."_ Riku said, probably with a smile, and Axel went _'Bah!_', "_But Xemnas came out with lotsa gel in his hair so I had to fight him...__Then we were kinda running up the stairs...__I was ahead of Sora, so when I reached the top first, I went back downstairs, and then when Sora reached the _thirteenth_ floor..."_

Axel _'Grr_'ed at the stressing of _thirteenth_, and so did Aurora. Riku looked like he was pretending to sound casual.

"... _He met Namine and told her that he loved her."_

"_WHAT!?"_ was Namine's stunned reaction.

"_YES!"_ The very girly voice shouted Macaulay Culkin style, letting itself to be known as Kairi's.

"_Nooooo..."_ complained the third male voice that gasped before.

"_I ain't finished!"_ cried Riku, annoyed. _"So Sora told Namine that he uber duber was super crazily in love with her, but she locked him in a tower- I mean, _flower_..."_

"_That's a good one, Nami!"_ Marluxia cheered.

"... _And told him that she didn't love him back cuz she was in love with someone else and _so was Sora..._"_ Riku went on blankly.

Various voices in the background let out a _'Wow!'_ of surprise. And as if he had reached the climax of the story, Riku concluded with a desperate sigh.

_"She said she was in love with _Roxas_."_

Aurora joined to the chorus of _'Oooh!'_ coming from the speakers.

"How romantic," she sighed, as she caressed the cheek of the girl sitting cognisantly on her left, "Don't you think, Xaku-chan?"

This time, Xaku-chan responded with a nod and a very muted voice.

"Yes."

"_Ahem_," the ever-popular third male voice (Aurora was definitely convinced that belonged to the Jack guy DiZ had mentioned) cleared his throat, "_Namine-chan, now we'll have _you_ talking_."

The less girly voice, also known as Namine's, breathed heavily. She was obviously bored.

"_What to say..."_ she started, "_I kinda dreamed of Sora falling from a tower... I mean_, flower..."

"_Wow!"_ went the happy-go-lucky voice that could only belong to Demyx.

"_And did he die?"_ asked the raucous voice of Roxas.

Namine didn't hesitate to answer.

"_Yah..."_

A childish gasp was heard from the protagonist in question.

"_Go on,"_ said the Jack chap.

Namine obeyed reluctantly, "_There's Sora, flying over the sea with his dead body, while I draw a nice little picture of him crying... Then he ends up on a beach, lying between Riku's and Kairi's dead bodies, hands in hands... Theeeeeen..._" Namine sounded as if she was trying to remember the missing part of her dream, "... _Sora falls under the sand and becomes Roxas..."_

The atmosphere had gradually become serene.

_"Roxas was drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning..."_ continued Namine with a monotonous voice, "_Then he touched surface... and lotsa birds flew around him... and he was looking at them flying away..._" she yawned.

_"And then?"_ Jack asked.

And then, a banging sound was heard.

"_JACK!_" a cry barged in the conversation.

"_Jack?!"_ Jack himself shrieked.

"_THEY KIDNAPPED HER!__RUKIA'S GONE!"_ the foreign voice yelled with a thick British accent.

"_We… What?!"_

Aurora evilly giggled as the reverberation of complete turmoil followed Jack's last exclamation. Slowly, this criminal giggle turned into a roaring malevolent laughter. Aurora flipped back her tremendously blond hair and dived into the sleeping girl's lap. Her long, sharp fingernails trailed across the insentient girl's face, cutting her across her cheekbone. Aurora ravenously licked the blood on the tip of her fingers.

"Ironic… isn't it?" the beautiful but maleficent girl smirked, resting her head on her victim's shoulder. "Everyone is looking for Rukia… But Rukia is right _here_."

When Rukia did not awake, Aurora sat up straight and sadistically slapped her on her cut cheek, dumping her from her chair.

"Damn you!" she screeched at the immobile figure lying down at her feet.

She then turned to the other girl, who had not moved an inch despite her eventful surroundings.

"Damn you too, _Xakuri_…" Aurora spat on her, an action that had no effect in startling Xakuri in any way.

All the maltreated girl did in response to the irate witch was to nod and reply briefly in an inexpressive tone.

"Ok."

* * *

"Alright, people," Jack cleared his throat, "This is Jack. Jack, this is… people."

"Ahoy, mateys!" _Jack_ greeted the people.

"Umm…" Yuna pouted and pointed first at the newcomer, then at her psychiatrist. "There's… two of you…? …"

Jack sighed. He certainly lost his head too by hanging out too much with his patients.

"Let's start again," he licked his lips. "_I_ am Jack, but you are to call me Jack-sensei."

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAI, JACK_IE_-SENSEEEEEEEEI!" shouted Sora, Rikku, and Demyx in unison.

"Very… good…" Jack commented with a lot of effort. "My friend here is called Jack too, but you're not to call him Jack… _i_e… sensei… You are to call him Captain Jack or Captain Jack Sparrow or Captain Sparrow or just Captain. Ok?"

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAI, JACKIE-SENSEEEEEEEEI!" repeated the usual trio according to routine.

"Rather loud today, aren't ye?" Jack Sparrow smiled, pointing at the whole lot including Jack.

"We are," Jack agreed.

They were gathered in a living room near to the hospital's boarding section. The KH group was to have their 10 'o clock break here, since Jack was ordered to investigate a certain dormitory room. They had to be the closest to their doctor, and the Queen of Hearts herself had taken he responsibility of babysitting them. (Axel had hidden his PSP and himself behind the sofa where Roxas was seated, the blond's face doing a bad job in containing all the enjoyment he was craving out of his friend's case.)

"What room exactly, may I ask?" Jack Sparrow inquired while following Jack through a narrow corridor.

"I've just done the roll call," Jack replied while squinting towards a piece of paper with the names of all his patients, "Looks like someone is missing. This person might be the key to Rukia-san's disappearance."

"And we are to look in her room?"

Jack turned to him with mystified eyes.

"Ho do you know it's a girl?"

"Because, mate," Jack Sparrow rested his white-sleeved arm around his friend's shoulder, "It's always women who bring all the trouble to the world."

"Oh… right."

Jack knew otherwise. He thought that his friend had to revise this sentence a little bit. Well, yes, women were troublesome creatures, but they didn't bring trouble on their own. There was always an external force that pushed them into committing whatever dangerous crime. Like Namine, for example; he was sure that she didn't really want to eat Zexion; she was just having a mental breakdown, and had lost control of her actions at the time and had to overcome some sort of a… dejavù. Her past experiences might have influenced her momentary state of mind… So it wasn't her fault after all. And besides, she is far from being cannibal. The Italian menu does not include human meat.

"Jack," Jack suddenly piped up, "You didn't tell me how or why you got here in the first place."

Jack Sparrow clicked his tongue.

"What to say," he wandered while waving his arm around. "Tortuga ran out of it long time ago."

"You're kidding me." Jack remarked by bringing his brows together in a frown.

"Have I ever given reason not to trust me?" Jack Sparrow groaned with annoyance.

"That's not what I meant," Jack retorted. "I was just surprised that you'd want to look for a crew in a _mental hospital_."

Jack Sparrow's reaction came out to be full of pure bewilderment.

'"Scuse me?" he brought his hands to his hips. "Why would I want a crew of mentals, eh?"

Jack bit back a laugh. It wasn't like his crew was composed of far crazier people already – nope, no way.

"You just said it yourself. Tortuga ran out of people you could ask to join your crew, no?"

Jack Sparrow rolled his eyes and shook his head as if he had just failed a straightforward attempt.

"I wasn't talkin' 'bout the crew, mate," he sighed again, patting Jack's shoulder.

"What then?"

"The rum," Jack Sparrow grinned an ear-to-ear smile, "Savvy?"

"… Doh. Rum in a hospital?"

"Uta what's-her-face is a women full of surprises."

Jack stopped his tracks and stood facing a completely white door. The only color that contrasted all that whiteness was a fingerprint-sized '5' printed on the top center. The redhead pushed the door open, revealing what remained in the room that its owner had put through the shredder. Jack Sparrow gaped at once.

On the white wall, so candid that it compared to the room's door, was a message from the previous inhabitant of the room, dedicatedly written with a vivid crimson liquid that threw into disarray the color balance of the whole milieu. The blood was fading at the corners, but the writing made itself clear.

'_WE'RE GONNA EAT HER, UTADA. ENEMIES OF THE 13__TH__ ORDER – BEWARE."_

As Jack kneeled down to pick up a box of _Adderall_, Jack Sparrow sighed again.

"Just who is this Paine lady, some aspirant of Lord Voldemort?"

* * *

**(1)** In the very first chapter (Prologue), in Jackie's journal, I mentioned something about killing pigs.

_**Authoress's Memo: **__416_ _ than the Prologue (3318 words). Where's all the fucking humor that first gathered in my mind when I started the story?_

**Jack: **You already know Aurora, don't you? She is more commonly dubbed as the Sleeping Beauty. Or Barbie, whatever. And the Adderall… boh. Just felt like putting it in.

**TMES: **_**I WAS LOOKING FOR A WORD COPY OF **_**LOVE YOUR SERVANT**_** WHEN I FOUND OUT I HAD THE KHII AND COM MANGA SCREENSHOTS IN MY PC! HOW FREAKIN' COOL IS THAT! I NEVER READ IT, AND NOW I FIND IT ALL FREE, BEGGING TO BE READ! WOOOOOOOT!**_

COMMENT, ASK QUESTIONS, STATE OUT DISCOVERIES, POINT OUT MISTAKES, COMPLAIN!

**WARN US IF THE STORY IS WAY TOO CONFUSING! TELL US WHERE!**


	6. Chapter 5

--

**Jack: KHII MANGA. VOLUME 1. CHAPTER FIVE. THERE'S A PIC OF AXEL ON TOP OF ROXAS. PAGE? 138. TOO GOOD TO BE A COINCIDENCE. AKUROKU FOREVER PEOPLE! **Also, just found out that 200**8 **is the year of Axel… We know that it's too late to wish a happy new year, but we have the excuse of not having internet connection for months, so… yeah. HAPPY NEW YEAR OF AXEL!

**TMES: **This is one of those explanatory chapters that everyone hates because of their boringness. I'm sorry, but I had to write this denouement in order for you to understand what's going on. It's like the first part of _To Kill a Mockingbird _and those final chapters of Harry Potter where everything's explained, difference being that this is not a final chapter (I know, shoot me) and it's terribly boring compared to the HP exciting ones and it doesn't include a Harry going mad at Sirius's death and destroying Dumbledore's office. The hospital staff would never go into its Headmistress's office and start destroying everything. It's Utada Hikaru we're talking about, not that simpleton of Dumbledore or… Lord Voldemort.

**Lord Voldemort: **_Simpleton?_

**TMES:**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!! –escapes–!

* * *

**At the Psychiatrist**

**-Chapter Five-**

"Number V, my dear," DiZ welcomed the fellow member into the Conference Room, "Come here and please show everyone what you just found."

Paine nodded uniformly and started walking towards the far end of the room. The walls of the room were entirely white, but its numerous bend were adorned with lanterns chained to the wall that hosted dark flames; these two contrasting colors tantalized the eye to not understand the real dimensions of the room. The whiteness seemed to have no end, and the boundaries of the room were perturbing to detect. Of course, the black lamps outlandishly glimmered with darkness at innumerable corners, but this fact made it even more impossible to calculate the perimeter and the shape of the room. Instead of pointing out the angles, they just seemed to produce a visual effect that made them seem very near and at the same time very far away.

The marble table in the middle of the room was the only computable thing around, excluding Paine and the residual thirteen members of the Order who were formally seated around it. When the mentioned woman reached her Superior, she gave him the few papers she had been holding.

"What're those, Daddy?" Xehanort, a man with a silver mane and bronzed skin, asked the red masked figure sitting at the lead of the long table, earning a title of supreme authority.

"This, my boy," DiZ answered while smirking inequitably at the papers, "Is vital information that will help us accomplish our goal."

"Oh?" Xehanort raised an eyebrow and rested his chin at the back of his hand, seemingly not so interested in all this. "You just found it like that? Where?"

Paine bowed to Xehanort and looked down.

"Internet," she mumbled.

Incessant laughter followed her last word. When it had finally died away, Aurora's hazel eyes squinted towards a particular unmoving figure very near to her.

"Why aren't you laughing, Xakuri?" she asked with the deepest tone of vile amusement.

At this, everyone turned their attention to the named girl. She was sitting at the end of the narrow table, directly facing the Superior. Her eyes were pitch black, and her eyebrows semi-closed. Her pale hands were neatly folded on her lap, comparing with the pallid dress covering her minute and slender body. Unlike the other occupants of the table, she had not stirred her body a millimeter, not even blinked. Aurora took this moment to her advantage to amass as much sadist enjoyment as she could.

"Xaku-chan," she launched herself again in the try to start up another question to further torment her victim, "Don't you think it's funny?"

Xakuri simply shook her head.

"No."

Before Aurora could retort astutely, DiZ interrupted with an amused voice.

"My dear Aurora-chan," he started with his usual amused and knowing tone, "I think it's you here who should not have laughed, don't you think?" he grinned maliciously.

Aurora hesitated, hanging her mouth wide open. She closed it and reopened it again, but could not think of any smart comebacks. Her Superior just continued laughing.

"Actually, my dear," he uttered in-between his laughs. "I don't think anyone should find it funny to know that he or she is to be… how can I say this? Xakuri-chan," he turned to the phlegmatic girl, "What are we about to do to Aurora-chan?"

Aurora gasped, but Xakuri gave no sentimental reaction to the man's poisoning words.

"_You are about to get rid of her."_

Aurora vehemently sat up and banged her palms on the hard surface of the marble table while her blonde locks hit her sweating forehead.

"No!" she shouted at DiZ, and then turned to Xakuri with gritting ravenous teeth. "_I _and only _I _am the one and only Number XIII! _You_," she pointed a finger at the hated girl, desperately wishing that she could dug her feline nails into that intolerably fair flesh, "_You _have no right to take away _my _honor just like that! This is _my _seat," she instantly sat on her marble chair, and folded her arms tightly, "And I'm not going to give it away to _you_ just like that. _Never!_" she spat with a snake's breath.

The room went absolutely silent. No one knew the best way by which they could break it: some frowned, and some bit their lips. But Xakuri seemed to be the only one to have assumed an expression that contained no personal outlook, as usual. At last, after five minutes of superlative silence, DiZ sighed heavily and stood up.

"I hope that you all know who you are," he stated with a solemn tone.

He looked around with his piercing ochre eyes, making sure that everyone knew what he was talking about.

"We are the _13__th__ Order,_" he jeered at the audience.

When he rested his eyes upon the corrupted figure of Aurora, they grew impossibly more forbidding. Aurora did not flinch and seemed to be unaffected by her Superior's cold glare, but inside that pink princess dress she was sweating rigorously.

"Therefore," DiZ continued, not ignoring the impervious looking blonde, "We are a group of _thirteen _members and we cannot have a fourteenth constituent. Do you understand, Number XIII? Or, shall I say, _Ex _Number XIII? Hah!"

The remaining members followed suit and laughed unkindly with their Superior with the exception of, of course, Xakuri. Aurora was breathing heavily. Her eyes grew so wide with rage that tiny red sparkles became visible in the corners of her eyes. DiZ motioned everyone, with his hand, to stand up. He then looked at Xakuri and licked his lips.

"Number XIII," he smiled warmly at the newest member of the Order, "I hope you know how to kill a _cow_."

Aurora gawked like a fish.

"Excuse me!" she shouted at DiZ, angrier at her nickname than at the whole point of the sentence. "Did you just call me _cow_?! I am _not_ a _COW_!"

Xakuri shook her head again.

"No, you're not," her remark was for the first time a comment composed of more than one word. "You're _Barbie_'s carbon copy."

The room roared with laughter. Aurora had a face that clearly said that she had never been humiliated as much in her life. Xehanort was continuously smacking the table, clueless to all the pain and more absorbed in the present cabaret.

"No wonder you dumped that Ken guy! He was such a _maaaaaaaaan_…" he hiccupped, using up all the energy he had left from the laughing. "Or have you gone lesbian?!"

DiZ decided to end the show of the day with a simple question.

"How do we start the ceremony, Number XIII?"

Xakuri closed her eyes.

"_Kill the cow_," She recited automatically. "_Cut her throat. Spill her blood. Bash her in._"

Aurora soon found herself lying on her back, her arms and legs tied to the four ends of a kitchen table. King Mickey picked up a knife with his gloved little hands and smirked ironically like the Cheshire Cat.

"_Bon appetit."_

* * *

"_BUON APPETITO!"_

Jack looked away from his friend in disgust as the man popped a big peace of roasted turkey into his mouth. Introducing Jack Sparrow to the KH Group had been a bad idea, since he obviously picked up Namine's every action - now he knew how to say 'bon appetit' in Italian. Jack sunk deeper into the red velvety sofa. They were in Ms. Utada's office, waiting for the rest of the staff to gather there. Apparently, Ms. Utada wanted to have a meeting about the imperative case of Ansem – and how Jack Sparrow fitted in, Jack had no idea. Yes, of course, Jack Sparrow had been involved with… _things_… in the past, but he never really cared for anything, unless there was some profit in there for him. Jack had always been good in spelling, and let him tell you that profit, in the pirate's language, is usually spelled R-U-M, rum. Got it memorized? Shoot him, now he's being haunted by Axel's phantom…

"In… a… _gnam_," Jack Sparrow gulped down the remains of his roast, "… Hospital. Savvy?"

Jack sighed. Why would Jack Sparrow think that there's rum hidden in a hospital? This is Utada Hikaru we're talking about. Not Davy Jones hiding the key to his locker behind his tentacles. Eww.

"Jack, please consider the fact of me being vegetarian."

Jack Sparrow poured himself some coke and gulped it down, shivers running throughout his body as he wholly understood the taste of that foreign beverage.

"This takes me back when we used to hunt pigs…" he bit a green apple and stared at the ceiling with dreamy eyes. "You were fun 'til it lasted."

"Don't remind me," Jack closed his eyes, and a memory of a nine-years-old version of him in a cauldron with dancing indigenes around him surfaced in his mind.

"_Oi, oi!" Jack Sparrow had shouted, hurrying off his animal-skin seat to face the burning cauldron. "More wood! Big fire!"_

_He had waved a strange furry stick he had been holding, while Jack desperately waved back from the gargantuan black pot he was kept in as the future dinner._

_The pirate, disguised as a native deity, had contorted his painted face dramatically while shouting, "More wood! Big fire! I am Chief, I want big fire!"_

"I signed out of your crew when I realized that the police would soon arrest you. And they did," Jack added, eyeing his friend sternly.

"That's when you forgot one thing mate," the other replied nonchalantly. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."

"And I'm Jackwell Greengrass," Jack shot back instinctively, "That's why DiZ kidnapped me four years later; he said he used to work under my father or something, and then he was fired."

"Aha!" Jack Sparrow swiftly threw the remains of his apple into a nearby bin, centering it perfectly. "The chap was just angry with your dad? No doubt that's why he's all Order-y, aye?"

Jack shook his head, "Nope. He was a biologist researching the human heart. My father fired him when he discovered that he had been doing some taboo work – concerning the human heart and human transmutation."

Jack Sparrow blinked.

"Wha?"

"Human transmutation is when you turn the body of a human into something else. Anyway, these experiments he had been doing had been banned in the laboratory, that's why he studied in secret. But my father found out about it, and gave him the sack. Still, he continued them somewhere else, and when he found out about me returning to my home in Twilight Town from my pirate holiday, he ordered this guy to kill me. I don't really remember the happenings at the time, but I do remember that the guy looked a lot like Tidus-san."

"_You're going down!" the brunette had pointed to him with a rather sharp-ended wooden sword._

"The chap with the ball who works here?" Jack Sparrow's eyes wandered off into the avenues of long forgotten memory.

"Yah…" Jack continued. "He definitely wasn't Tidus-san, I can tell. Anyway, he somehow set fire to my home. He prevailed in throwing my whole house in turmoil with his flames. Actually, he disguised as a fire fighter, that's how he entered without any difficulty. I was in my bedroom then, and…"

"_Stop running away!"_

_Jack had raised his eyebrows. Running away? He wasn't running away! Who did this guy think he was, the Kraken? Even _that _wouldn't scare him away._

"_Gotcha!" the guy had bellowed wickedly, while the piercing edge of his blade gently cut Jack a little below his neck. "Now you're gonna-"_

_Suddenly, the dark, colorless eyes of the killer landed upon something that made them turn white with dread._

Jack gulped, "… And when he walked up to me to kill me, he…"

"He?"

"… He ran away."

Jack Sparrow stopped picking his nose.

"Oh. No wonder you still haven't found yourself a girl, mate."

"The hell," Jack shook his head with exasperation, "He didn't run away because _I _scared him. Seemingly…" he bit back a laugh. "He was mooglephobic."

"_WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"_

_Jack blinked his eyes in confusion and turned to stare at Moogus._

"_Moogus_!" Jack Sparrow shrieked, remembering that stuffed doll he once bought for Jack for his birthday.

"_Moogus_," nodded Jack, repeating the name of his moogle. "I was holding him. You really think I'd let it burn?"

"Wait a second, mate" Jack Sparrow motioned Jack to slow down. "How does Utada lady fit into this?"

"I'm nearly there," Jack replied calmly. "DiZ sent the Tidus-san-looking guy to kill me two years after I came back home. Two years later after the Moogus incident, that's four years after me saying good-bye to the Black Pearl, DiZ attacked again. This time, he sent someone else, and not with the intention to kill me. The guy kidnapped me. Guess the name of the guy."

Jack Sparrow stared with confront as Jack smiled enigmatically.

"Robert?" he guessed, "Fanny?"

"Jack," Jack threw his head back on the settee.

"Yes?"

"No, idiot," Jack shook his head with annoyance, "The guy's name was _Jack_."

"Ta," rejoined Jack Sparrow as if he were expecting such an obtuse answer. "And you let yourself be taken away, just like that?"

"You would've too, if you were in my place," Jack blushed a little.

"_You want some candy, little boy?" the tall stranger had grinned and moved his _bony_ fingers forward to reach out to the 11-years old kid trapped in a corner. "I can take you to Halloween Town! There's lots of candy there!"_

_The little redhead had shaken his head uneasily._

"_I don't like Halloween…"_

"_Aaah," the _man _had recoiled his hand backwards and scratched his bare white head. "What about the Sugar Mountain?"_

_Jack's eyes had started to well up with emotion._

"_You don't get me!" he whimpered exhaustingly, "I. Don't. Like. Sweet stuff!"_

_The frightening figure frowned._

"_But there's lots of coffee-flavored candies in Candy Lane!" he protested, lecturing the poor child with harsh nonexistent eyes. "And melted chocolate… I can assure you it's not sweet! There are some sour ones… And liquorice! Not the slightest taste of sugar in it!"_

_Jack fell on the ground, refusing to open his eyes and have another look at the unfamiliar alien in front of him._

"_That's not the _point

"The guy scared me shitless. He looked like a skeleton!"

"So?" Jack Sparrow asked, clearly enjoying the whole patronize-Jack-to-no-end. "We had Barbossa filling us in with that."

"No, not skeleton-y like the Aztec gold shit," Jack retorted with arrogance, "He was _more_ skeleton-y. He _was_ a skeleton. Anyway," He interrupted Jack Sparrow from whatever witty reply he was about to utter in order to embarrass the redhead, "DiZ wanted me to be his experiment. He…" his voice grew hoarse, and he licked his dry lips as routine, "… He…"

Jack gulped as he felt a pang forming in his throat.

"… _He wanted to create a Nobody version of me."_

"I'm flattered," Jack Sparrow's ironic voice brought him back from his ill state of mind.

"Shut up," he groaned, "You don't even know what a _Nobody_ is. It's… how can I say this…"

Jack fumbled with his camera as Jack Sparrow waited patiently, devouring his second apple. At last, he picked up a red pen and a pencil from Ms. Utada's desk and a blank white page from his notepad and started drawing. He first drew a simple profile of a human body with the red pen. At its core, he drew a heart and where the head was, he drew a circle with the word 'soul' written in it. He labelled the diagram '_living being_'.

"Let's pretend this is a normal living thing. Considering its shape, let's say it's a human being. It's _living_," he emphasized the last word, "It's not Barbossa all over again."

"I wasn't goin' to say so, mate," Jack Sparrow laughed heartedly.

Jack drew two arrows. Beside one arrow, he drew, always with the red pen, the shape of another human being. This time, its heart was half the piece, as was its soul. He titled it '_living being after experiment_'. He then picked up the pencil and drew a third human beside the second arrow; its heart and soul was broken too, and it contained half a part of them. He marked it as '_Nobody_'.

"Suppose that this is me," Jack pointed at the very first diagram he drew as Jack Sparrow leaned towards him to have a better look. "If DiZ were to make a Nobody out of me, he would first have to create a synthetic body resembling mine. That is, he'd have to create an artificial body that looks like me. This artificial body is empty of a soul and a heart, so I guess you could say it's non-living."

Jack ignored the whimper Jack Sparrow let out, pretending not to have heard him snivelling, _"Why does the kid make things difficult!"_

"I drew the artificial body in pencil," Jack resumed his lecture. "After creating this body, he'd have to cut my soul and heart in half."

"How? With diamonds?"

Jack shook his head, "No…"

"_I do it with a sharper weapon, boy," the masked man had smirked, his face inches away from that of the livid child._

"_Darkness_," the redhead murmured.

Jack Sparrow snorted. Jack ignored him again.

"After splitting them, he makes it so that half of my heart and half of my soul remains within my body, and the other halves, as you can see," Jack indicated the third schema, drawn in pencil, to the disinterested captain, "He plants them inside the fake body, so that the body turns from dead to alive."

Jack put the page on the tea table. Jack Sparrow slapped his hands together and inclined them towards his friend, an action that made Jack think that maybe he was somehow related to Namine… a distant cousin of her aunt's nephew twice removed, perhaps?

"If we take this to be the case," Jack Sparrow squinted his eyes and focused them onto Jack's glazing blue ones, "There'd be a you other than yourself existing, aye?"

Jack nodded.

"Aye. But since we exist here, they cannot be termed as existent," Jack folded his arms in opposite disagreement, "This is why they are known as _Nobodies_. They exist, but at the same time, they do not."

"Ah," Jack Sparrow turned back to his empty plate and looked at it hungrily. "Still, why is it that DiZ chap is Order-y?"

"Because of Ms. Utada," Jack answered firmly, "Let me continue the story. He wanted create a Nobody of me, but he didn't make it on time."

"How so?"

"You see," Jack let out a merciless giggle as Jack Sparrow frowned and backed away immediately, "He took me to be his experiment in a secret underground lab in a mansion in the middle of the woods in Twilight Town, also known as the Abandoned Mansion. Too bad he didn't notice the dirt-covered sign on its gate."

Jack picked up his camera and browsed through all the pictures he had taken with it. He showed one to Jack Sparrow, a particular photo of a gate with a dusty cardboard sign on it that said '_ON SALE_'.

"Sooooo…" Jack snickered harder, "If he had at least read the newspaper, he would've known that someone had bought it already, and that the precise day he decided to turn me into half a being was the day when the mansion was to be… _abolished._"

Jack Sparrow was absorbed in scuffling the mechanic device that hung from the laughing young man's neck.

"And how's Utada connected to this all?"

"Don't you get it?!" Jack was out of breath from all the laughing. "Ms. Utada was the one who bought the mansion! She wanted to build her hospital there!"

Jack Sparrow just continued to press randomly on the buttons of his friend's camera.

"But she didn't."

"No, she didn't; the place became a research area for the police, but later they abandoned it again. Anyway, before DiZ could complete his experiment, they banged on one side of the mansion and the electric current died somehow, so all the devices he was using stopped working. I think that the library floor, along with the _trapdoor_ that lead to the secret lab, was wiped out from the bash; maybe that's how they knew that there still were some people in the house. I dunno. Point is, they (miraculously) stopped the big ball from banging again and when Ms. Utada herself came to check in, she found me."

"Drinks all around!" Jack Sparrow suddenly jumped and shrieked with tart sarcasm.

"Shut up," Jack tried to sound annoyed, but he didn't succeed in repressing a small smile. "Too bad DiZ and his gang escaped before the police could take them to their appointment with the gallows. But that doesn't mean that they forgot Ms. Utada's name."

Jack Sparrow sat back again and snored.

"Poor them… Is that why he raids, plunders, and otherwise pilfers the weaselly black guts out of the Singaporean population?"

"They look like Japanese people, and now you know why he's so racist when it comes to them," Jack shrugged. "Anyway, that's why DiZ created the 13th Order – he seeks revenge against Ms. Utada because she unmasked him… accidentally. But…" Jack closed his eyes tiredly, "… _Namine_… said something about _Kingdom Hearts… _didn't she? It was fairly obvious that DiZ wouldn't do all this just for some silly revenge. Still…"

"Can I go to sleep now?" Jack Sparrow continued snoring.

When the door opened to reveal the flourishing figure of Hikaru Utada, he cursed Callypso, Davy Jones and their baby. She quickly strode to their sofa and glared at Jack. The redhead immediately sat up and bowed, his eyes widening with fear.

"You distributed the information all around," she hissed with malevolency, and she threw some papers at her young employee.

Jack instantly gathered all the pages and leafed through their content, his eyes growing aghast the more he read. When he finished, he lifted his head up daringly to face his boss. He was trembling like a leaf.

"Where… did you… find this?" he whispered with a thin thread of voice.

Ms. Utada's pale hand grew into tight fists.

"_Fanfiction-net_."

* * *

_**Authoress's Memo: **__3716 WORDS! LONGEST CHAPTER (and the most boring) EVER! 814+ than Prologue. Ending lacked originality. Thanks to __William Golding_

**Jack: **Yes, people. The very first thing you learned about me in this story: I HATE FANFICTION-NET. In case you were too absorbed in my biography or did not note down the obvious (I bloody hope you did), I'm here to remind you that **Paine's papers in the beginning were the same papers Ms. Utada threw at me.**

**Lord Voldemort: **How dare you elevate her to a higher level than me!

**TMES: **… He's part of the commentary or what?

COMMENT, ASK QUESTIONS, STATE OUT DISCOVERIES, POINT OUT MISTAKES, COMPLAIN!

**WARN US IF THE STORY IS WAY TOO CONFUSING! TELL US WHERE!**


	7. Chapter 6

--

**Thanks to all the reviewers (especially blackbunny1), alerts and favs! And the 280 hits, out of which only 15 people kept on reading up to ch. 5… Oo I should do something to attract your attention…**

_**FK! FF-NET DELETED ALL MY BREAKS! BUUUUH!**_

**TMES: **Dear readers and writers, you _do _realize that it is _impossible _to not to go OOC with a character that does _not _belong to you. Because you are _not _Tetsuya Nomura, or Disney, or Gore Something-inski, or… you get my point. Readers should never blame writers and writers should never blame themselves for going OOC with fictional characters that don't belong to them. Of course, you can blame when it comes to OOC-ness _according to the fanfic_. Just remember that you don't _own _the characters! You're borrowing them, you're using them, you're working with them, and you're trying to bond with them. So be reasonable when you comment about OOC-ness. I know, it's totally random, but I felt like writing _something. _GWAAAAAAAH!

**Jack: **Check out for the next anagram and the number 138! She wanted to put 813 (to show that it's AkuRoku, not RokuAku), but it's impossible to instantly get 138 hits by posting a new story in FF-net… You'll get me later. BTW, this chap's actually the second part of the denouement, ch. 5 being the first part…

* * *

**At the Psychiatrist**

**-Chapter Six-**

"_Who are you?"_

_The sickening sounds of metal against metal instantly stopped at the inquiry. The owner of the voice, a boy in his early teens, lifted his heavy eyebrows upwards with a lot of effort. Not that this action served any purpose; everything was pitch dark anyway._

"_Who are you?" his curious, bass voice asked again. "Are you a ghost?"_

_When the invisible figure beside him did not reply, the boy tried to rephrase his sentence._

"_What's your name?"_

_This time, a deep sigh came back as a reply._

"_Pinocchio."_

"… _Oh."_

_Riku started to bite his lips. Why had he tried to start a fruitless conversation? Look at him (if you knew how to look in the dark, that is). Look at what loneliness has made of him. Trying to talk to stranger when the first rule parents always set for their children is to never talk to people you don't know. But then again, Riku had never followed rules in his life. In fact, it was talking to a foreign man in the woods that got him here in the first place. That man had been a stranger._

"_Did you meet the man in red, too?" he asked the unknown person beside him, an involuntarily sympathetic tone accompanying his words. "Did he kidnap you too? Is that how you got here?"_

_Pinocchio sighed again. Riku took that as a 'yes'. He sat silently for a moment, thinking of the next question that would keep his hunger for company at bay._

"_Where do you come from?"_

_Pinocchio let out a raucous laugh. It sounded very honest, though._

"_The Kingdom of Light," it (he?) whispered in-between its laughs, "That's an island."_

_Riku smiled inwardly._

"_I come from an island too," he stated, as he inched towards that charming, petite voice, the chains bound to his feet crawling gratingly against the cold ground. "But the island _I_ come from is called Kingdom of Darkness."_

_Another sigh._

_Riku forcefully bit his lower lip through the slow silence that followed._

"_I don't believe your name's Pinocchio," he murmured at last, annoyed. "I'm not dumb."_

_The stranger just laughed stiffly at his discovery._

"_Took you long enough, oh Warrior of Darkness."_

_Riku frowned._

"What _are you?"_

_An unseen but perceptible smile grew on the stranger's face._

"_A Warrior of Light."_

_Warrior of Light. Warrior of Darkness. Complete opposites. They were on different sides. The stranger shook his head. _No, _he replied. It wasn't about light and darkness. It wasn't about good and evil. It wasn't about choosing sides. _What was it about, then? _Riku asked doubtfully, sceptic about the stranger's wisdom. _It was about the reason you choose for continuing your life, _the stranger replied. But there was no reason! The stranger smiled one of his mysterious smiles again. _Then why are you continuing your life? Why are you still alive? Why aren't you dead already? _If there was no reason, there would be no use in living. One would kill himself, wouldn't he? _Killing yourself isn't so easy,_ Riku protested_. _But the stranger had all the answers contradicting his beliefs. _You don't want to kill yourself because you are afraid of death. _Being afraid of death means that one wants to live. And wanting to live means that one has a reason for living. _No, I don't… Then you're just waiting for a reason to come along your path, aren't you? _Riku was too ashamed to admit that the other had seen right through him._

_Yes, he was._

_The stranger's smiles seemed knowing. _Just like the Mona Lisa, _Riku thought, as a glow of white light started to drive away some of the darkness trapped with them inside the meanders of the cage they were in. The light turned the invisible shadow into a boy. Soft, brunet spikes. _Can I touch them? _The boy, a stranger no more, nodded. His skin was not pale like his own; it ripened with shine, it was as fair as the sun. He looked like a little doll made of porcelain, so fragile, yet so strong… And his eyes… They glimmered, too. Two touches of ocean under the midday sun. _What's your name?

_Sora was, indeed, a Warrior of Light._

_And that's when Riku found a reason for living._

_And that's when Riku committed the gravest sins a Warrior of Darkness could ever commit._

_He fell in love._

* * *

The silver-haired boy woke up with a jolt. He instantly passed a sweaty palm over his chest, trying to calm down.

He didn't sense any beating.

* * *

"They _plucked_ your eye out, checked it, and _plonked _it back again?!"

Roxas nodded at the childishly gaping form of Sora.

"Nothing to worry about," he feigned a casual look, "Then they also checked Kairi's lucky charm, Axel's chakrams, Namine's sketchbook, Yuna, Yuffie and Rikku's rations of candy, Xemnas's hair gel, Saïx's stack of yaoi manga, Xigbar's collection of airplanes, Xaldin's Leonardo Da Vinci-style wings, Marluxia's cow-plant, Larxene's kunai's, Demyx's sitar, Zexion's books, Lexaeus's microphone, Jane's pink gel pen and notepads, Mulan's Mushu, Vivi's… _body_, Seifer's beanie, Olette's Barbie magazines, King Mickey's crown, Goofie's trousers, Donald's hat, Queen Minnie's tiara, Cip and Dale's gummibears… Well you get my point," Roxas dropped himself gently on his bed. "They've done a complete checking of all our belongings."

"Oooooh…"

Sora imitated Roxas and fell on the bed. He snuggled up to the blond, encircling his arms around his waist and placing his head on his chest. Roxas's eyes slightly twitched as the brunet buried his face deep into Roxas's stomach

"I thought we were in a hospital, not in an airport," Roxas complained, deciding to take the anger his annoyance led to on the hospital's security system rather than at Sora's infuriating behavior.

"Mmmmm-aaaaah… Uhhhhh… Nnnnn…"

Roxas's eyes twitched again.

"What _are _you doing, Sora?!"

Sora mumbled, brushing his face again and again against Roxas's body.

"I'm tryna sleep, Roxie-chaaaaan…"

Roxas snorted.

"That's useless. You never sleep at nights."

Sora swiftly got up and climbed on top of the blond. His narrow, light blue eyes stared intently at Roxas's dark ones, their faces so close that their noses were touching.

"I don't get it," Sora murmured as he brought his elbows against Roxas's upper body and rested his head on the palms of his hands. "How comes we Warriors of Light can never sleep? Warriors or Darkness can sleep all they want! I mean, Aurora-chan sleeps aaaaall day long…"

Roxas rolled his eyes.

"I hope she gets to fall asleep forever or something," he commented with bitterness. "She's unbearable! Ken this, Ken that… I mean, who cares about her boyfriend! She's like a walking Barbie doll. We better not introduce her to Olette…"

Sora suddenly whimpered, earning a glare from the boy under him.

"What _now?" _Roxas hissed malevolently, clenching his teeth tightly to prevent any violent reaction against the brunet.

"I was talking about Aurora-chan being a Warrior of Darkness, not Barbie!" Sora pouted as he babyishly hit Roxas's shoulders with small, tender punches.

Roxas raised an eyebrow.

"Warrior of _what?_" he frowned, leaning a little towards the brunet's head. "You and your imagination… I think you watched too much _Xena_ or something…"

Sora stopped pouting. For a moment, he looked at the blond with an emotionless expression. Then he removed his elbows from Roxas's body and went back to his previous position, hugging the blond tightly and using him as a human pillow. Roxas sighed, and instantly fell asleep.

But Sora's eyes were still wide open.

"_You'll understand me one day, Roxas."_

* * *

"Yes Aerith-san, you may keep your tea set. And yes, Tifa-san, you may keep your bra, as long as you put it back_ on_. No, Seifer-kun, I think that big dildo you call a Struggle foam-bat may be dangerous, so I'll keep it for the rest of your stay here and give it back to you when you are dismissed from the hospital, if that ever happens. Hercules-san, I don't care how manly your muscles are; give me that Olympic Stone and shoo. _Shoo!"_

Jack indignantly pouted as Mr. Rudol threw a whole deck of cards against the last of his examined patients, urging them to get out of the room and never come back.

Yes, let's face it. He missed them a lot. An _awful lot. _It was only yesterday afternoon Ms. Utada proved him guilty as charged, and it has been only a total of 24 hours since he last had a lesson with the KH Group, but… It was dumbfounding the intensity with which Jack was wishing to be back with them as a doctor… The poor guys are now hanging around their boarding territory with an annoying Queen of Hearts stuck behind their butts. And now Mr. Rudol is mistreating them as well. Jack couldn't have felt angrier. He still couldn't believe that he had mistakenly posted his journal entries on the net! On _Fanfiction-net _to make it worse! Who knows how many people read it… He didn't even try to persuade his boss to consider that it wasn't his fault entirely, that the reason of this ridiculous gaffe was his recently preoccupied state of mind caused by his patients. But he did tell her what exactly his patients had worried him with.

The Winnie the Pooh camera first of all. At first sight, Jack had thought that it was just his imagination. But he grew more suspects as its annoying 'PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!'ing sound started to sound more like a 'BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!'ing sound. Of course, a normal person would never have noticed it, but Jack, having spent a lot of time in the company of the Black Pearl's crew, knew that not only must a pirate have a keen eye, but he must also have keen ears. He had planned to do something about it, but Sora (emotionally moved by Rukia) intervened before him.

Secondly, King Mickey. He got to have a clear look at the mouse when he blamed him for neuralizing them. He had this strange impression that he had seen him somewhere before… Then he remembered. He realized that he had seen a peluche that looked a lot like the King in the secret laboratory under the trapdoor in the library of the Abandoned Mansion… That's when it clicked. He quickly put his notes together and requested a visit from the KH Group's mentor, Ansem the Wise. When he finally got to meet him for the first time, it turned out, to his astonishment, that he had met the man a long time ago in Twilight Town.

Twilight Town. Hayner and the others said they used to live in Twilight Town. But then, why do the records say that they come from Destiny Islands? Obviously, Ansem, or, shall he say, _DiZ_, had supplied the hospital with the wrong information. Had the rest of the hospital staff been more capable in dealing with the security system, the KH Group wouldn't even be here. Or maybe it's DiZ unending range of acumen that allowed him to sneak in his fellow, dumb apprentices in.

His little visit to the injured Namine and Zexion resulted to the direct mentioning of the 13th Order - _a group of cannibals who want to eat you whole_, as Namine had put it. Over the years, Jack had tried vainly to forget the one characteristic of DiZ and his posse that persuaded Jack to become vegetarian – their obsession with human meat. Jack had already been certain that DiZ and the 13th Order were behind this all, so Namine and Zexion just reminded him of that. But some additional information uttered by the blonde girl made the pitch of the strings delve higher. _They don't care, _Namine had said, _they want to eat you anyway. To that end, they're desperately searching for something… Kingdom Hearts. _That didn't make any sense. Why would the 13th Order want to search for Kingdom Hearts because they desperately want to eat people? And besides, Kingdom Hearts doesn't have human inhabitants, does it? The name says so: a kingdom of _hearts_. What a stupid name – equally as stupid as Twilight Town's. And Destiny Islands can be added to the list. Don't forget Traverse Town. What missed out were Hollow Bastion, Radiant Graden, the Land of Dragons, Pride Lands, Neverland, Wonderland, Halloween Town, and some other pathetic fallacy.

Jack was constricted to forget about Kingdom Hearts (_whatever _it was) the very moment he discovered that DiZ also succeeded in infiltrating another camera into their stronghold – Roxas's eye. Whether it had also a sound-recording device inside, Jack had no idea. He decided to leave it blindfolded during one of his sessions with his patients (the session after which Jack Sparrow had come in, yelling with the highest volume his vocal cords could get to) – not that any harm could've come from it. When the hospital techies checked it properly when Roxas turned in for inspection, they found out that it _was _able torecord sound. They also found out that without breaking it apart, the device inside it could not be deactivated, and they did not have another eye to give to poor little Roxas as a replacement. Mr. Rudol, the head of the security section, suggested the idea of disabling the eye's functions temporarily from time to time – how this was explainable, Jack didn't know. He only knew that it was to be treated with special drops every week or so, so that the eye could be 'switched off' every time the medicine wore out.

But before all this was done, a tragedy occurred; Rukia's room was found lingering in debris, her body disappeared. Jack immediately gave the fault to DiZ. He didn't know how the leader of the 13th Order could center into the case of Rukia's disappearance, but when Jack noticed that Paine was missing from the group, he discovered that it was the 13th Order after all. The traces and the fingerprints found in Rukia's room coincided as Paine's, and the blood that was used to write the message on the wall of her room belonged to, no doubt, Rukia herself.

Speaking of menstrual stress...

Ms. Utada had enough of it. She summoned a meeting, but before the hospital staff could even join the reunion, another avalanche hit the situation harshly: accounts from Jack's computer-processed journal were found posted in Fanfiction-net. The hits recorded for it were 138, and Jack had prayed frenziedly that the Fanfiction-net users hadn't even bothered to read the rest of the first sentence… Fortunately, the account of The Mad Empty Shell wasn't widely known or read from, but who knows! From the sound of it, Ms. Utada was sure that the enemy had found the information already, and Jack knew otherwise than to doubt her mortal instincts. By the way, the title of the story? '_At the Psychiatrist'. _How cool is that.

"Why do things have to be so complicated?!" Mr. Rudol exasperatedly threw his hands onto the air and leaned back on his chair, while the other cursed him and Avril Lavigne with all his might. "What about just kicking these people out! Forget about Rukia being a hostage – just go save her and give a shit about this herd of brainwashed dickwads!"

Jack felt his hands tighten into fists that could have easily smashed the heart and a soul of someone (that someone being that blond Mr. Asshole sitting right in front of him) and turn him into a Nobody.

"… _They're… not… brainwashed…"_ he succeeded in muttering with a low, serpentine voice.

Mr. Rudol snorted. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a polythene bag.

"Then how do you explain _these_?"

He ruthlessly threw out the contents of the bag on the hard surface of the desk. A number of white little packages came out, each with a different brand name printed on it. Jack recognized the familiar box of _Adderall _he first found on the messy floor of Paine's boarding room.

"You don't need a brainwashing machine to play with people's minds, kid," the older man passed a hand over his moustached mouth, breathing heavily onto it. "These are all powerful drugs with equally powerful effects. They release stores of norepinephrine and dopamine from nerve endings by converting the respective molecular transporters into open channels. They also release stores of serotonin from synaptic vesicles when taken in relatively high doses, and believe me when I say that this is exactly what happened - _overdose_. They also prevent the monoamine transporters for dopamine and norepinephrine from recycling them, a.k.a. they perform reuptake inhibition, which leads to increased amounts of dopamine and norepinephrine in synaptic clefts. This simultaneous combination rapidly increase the concentrations of the respective neurotransmitters in the synaptic cleft, which-"

"–Promotes nerve impulse transmission in neurons that have those receptors, yada yada yada," Jack grunted impatiently while sinking deeper into his seat opposite to the annoying man, who became annoyed himself by the interruption. "Committed to memory straight from the textbook, word per word," Jack said as he tapped the side of his forehead with the tip of his index finger; Axel would have loved to be in his place, sure thing. Blah, the redhead's phantom hunting him again…

"You little brat," Mr. Rudol smirked wickedly as he shook his head, deeply amused, his left-ear earring shining and darkening with every shake, "So you _do_ admit that they're _B-R-A-I-N-W-A-S-H-E-D- ah_," to the redhead's grave disappointment, he spelled the word correctly, stressing exaggeratedly each and every letter and adding a vowel at the end of the word, reminding him of Davy Jone's unbearable accent.

Jack grimaced. Tests have proved that every patient had been victim to the drug abuse, so how could there be room for suspecting that DiZ had sent another member of the Order along with Paine? The KH Group has been checked thoroughly, from tip to toe; they were no longer a threat! Actually, they could be of help – Jack would be able to draw out some useful information just like he did from Namine and Zexion or by using his evil, evil, purely evil psychiatric powers. _GWAHAHAHAHA! Take that DiZ, you fucking biatch!_

"Oh, by the way, Utada-sama told me to give you these." Mr. Rudol, oblivious to Jack's evil, evil, purely evil psychiatric thoughts, tossed him some papers.

Jack absentmindedly gathered the papers and prayed for this 'throw-papers-at-him-he's-a-paper-magnet' issue people had over him to come to an end.

"What're these about?" he asked, too tired to go through them.

Mr. Rudol had already arranged a new deck of cards into deformed piles, ready to throw them at the innocuous doctor.

"To your greatest displeasure and disbelief, Mr. Greengra-_ass_" the blond contracted his turquoise eyes scorching with marauder-like victory, "Your patients' case is being transferred to… where again? The_ Destiny Islands _headquarters_, HAH_!"

A storm of cards hit Jack straight onto his astounded face.

* * *

_**Authoress's Memo: **__3100 words, 527+ than the Prologue._

**Lord Voldemort: **-sings- _Little twinkle in the sky, I'm gonna make you shine! Make you shine, make you shine, make you shine…_

**TMES: **Thanks Voldie, but, as you said before, I'm already _twinkling. _No, I'm not, really, but _you _said I was, so where's the point in making me shine when I'm a twinkle already?! I'm not, but…

COMMENT, ASK QUESTIONS, STATE OUT DISCOVERIES, POINT OUT MISTAKES, COMPLAIN!

**WARN US IF THE STORY IS WAY TOO CONFUSING! TELL US WHERE!**


	8. Chapter 7

**TMES:** Will this chapter turn out to be a filler? HATE FANFICTION-NET FOR FUCKING UP MY UPLOADED CHAPTERS.

**Lord Voldemort:** 26,108 WORDS TOTAL! –imitating Bilbo Baggins- ALMOST AS OLD AS I AM!

**TMES:** Note: **Sephora** is this company that sells make-up… NEVER try the lip-gloss – and if you do, apply it directly without touching it with your fingers. It's stickier than the Super Attak. **_Thanks go to my beta-reader, Starchii!_**

* * *

**At the Psychiatrist**

**-Chapter Seven-**

Demyx's twinkling blue orbs met the equally blue ocean ahead of him. The horizon was vacant of land, and as the cruiser was abandoning Traverse Town's crowded port it was leaving behind narrow layers of candid, watery spray. The sun was high up in the cloudless, cerulean sky, its white, luminous rays spreading on the surface of the sea and on the cruiser, heating both slightly. As the vehicle caught speed, the wind vaguely blew on Demyx's thin chocolate jacket, driving away the mid-August warmth. He began to tap his fingers gently on the railing, thinking up a new tune to somehow imprint this sensation into memory. Of course, the whole scene would have been more striking if the sky had the tone of a velvety indigo instead of a light blue… It all would have worked better if it were night. He was not the Melodious Morning Person; he was the Melodious Nocturne. He shook his head. Oh well, fate made it so that the time is never ripe…

… Wait a moment. No, a second, a minute… _MAKE UP YOUR MIND!_ …Maybe it is.

The musician's curious eyes hit upon a friendly figure that made its way out on deck. This was a definitely bizarre case – Axel, the _pyro_maniac, getting out of his cabin to meet the _ocean_ when he should have puked his heart out of _hydro_phobia? Okaaaaay… Maybe he could close his eye to this considering that it's the _thirteenth of August_… _Aaaaand _considering also that that little blond of his (Axel's, not _his_) was out too. Darn the occasion, nighttime would've been more romantic. Demyx closed his eyes, successfully entering Axel's mind and deciding what the first line of his up-to-the-minute prose should sound like.

_**'From the day that I saw you**_

_**I knew that we would pursue.'**_

Bleh. Sappy. And cliché…Then again, who the heck cares anyway? It's not like this is all being written down right now so that it can be published later on Fanfiction-net or something…

"Hi Roxas!" Axel's bright voice was heard amidst the creaking of the seagulls. "I knew I'd find you here!"

"Bravo," was Roxas's monotonous reply – he didn't even bother to turn around and face the redhead.

Axel smiled warmly, not minding the blond's emotionless greeting at all. Demyx was perhaps the only one who knew why Axel never felt disappointed when Roxas treated him like this; on the contrary, he felt fulfilled. No, it was not only because he was deeply in love with him, but also because it was precisely Roxas's uninterested persona that attracted him to the blond in the first place. Cold guys are, irony apart, so _hawtt_… That's how Roxas and Zexion were alike… Demyx giggled at his anything but innocent thoughts.

Axel bore on his face a wicked Cheshire grin.

"Guess what day it is today?!"

The anniversary of the day they first met? Yup, that must be the right answer. Demyx had always been good with dates. He still remembered his and Zexion's day… June the 8th. And he also remembered that they first talked to each other two month's after their encounter, the 6th of August. There were a million other dates doom had conferred to them and still preserved.

_**'Cause the chemistry we felt that day**_

_**Felt so real, and so true…'**_

But Roxas looked unaware of what destiny had given him. Naïve, as usual, he responded:

"The day your squirrel died…?"

… Super naïve, may we add? This simple-minded response surprised Axel, but at the same time, he knew Roxas would say something like this. It was a common trait in his character.

"Well… yeah," Axel mumbled as he leaned on the railing with his upper-back, so that he could see Roxas's face clearly, "But, uh, I was referring to another event…"

"What else?" Roxas stared at him with blank eyes. "The day Sora got his Pooh bear?"

"Nuh-uh!"

"The day Sephiroth stole some Sephora lip-gloss from Larxene and tried it on his hair?"

"Nope!"

"The day Phil found out that he was in the same family tree as Mr. Tumnus?"

"Nah!"

"The day Mulan decided to fire Mushu on the point where Japan was located in Mr. Ansem's miniature globe?"

"Nuuuuuh!"

"The day Demyx first suffered from erectile dysfunction?"

_'Fate is a bitch.'_

Demyx visibly twitched.

No… scratch that. A flawless emo line, but it wouldn't really fit in the song. At least, not from Axel's perspective. Let's put something more rudimentary.

_**'Looking back on a year we spent together...'**_

"Wrong answer!" Axel laughed mirthfully, "Cuz fate made it so that Dem got his pen falling off the day after!"

…

… _Oi, you two little shitheads, I'm right here, yo! YO! You do realize that I'm right, like, two meters behind you, right? Right?? I'M HERE YOU MOTHER EFFERS! Are you hearing me?? Because I can hear you! OI!_ Fuck them for not being mind readers like Zexion.

… That's it. _Shut the fuck up before I decided to write something really nasty about you in my newest song!_

_What do _you _know about a misbehaving penis?!_

_**'How it's been**_

_**How we went through…'**_

"Okay, fine, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Roxas returned his attention to the ocean, his face assuming the neutral expression he had before the conversation. Demyx knew that Axel was getting somewhere because he had been able to break through that façade of indifference. It was a great accomplishment, showing just how much Axel cared. This affection was greater than basic assumption because even Demyx, being a poet and a musician, did not know how to dismantle Roxas's feelings. That's the great inconvenience Axel had – he was able to break Roxas's heart, and if he did not act carefully, he would certainly crush his love without even being aware of it. He had to be particularly prudent in avoiding the use of this lethal ability.

Axel was very amused by Roxas's show of apathy. Perhaps, Demyx thought, Roxas was just pretending to not give a shit about what day it was. Or/and maybe he was embarrassed because he couldn't answer Axel's question. Figures that Demyx would never know if Roxas was really faking it… That would remain Axel's little secret.

"Gee, Roxie, you're really shallow, aren't you?" Axel commented with a tired but maintaining smile. "Alright, Mr. Petty Head, I will tell you the answer to the grand enigma."

Demyx felt like jumping with joy and running up to Axel and hugging him to no end, for he finally succeeded in making the corners of Roxas's lips curve into a dainty but discernible smile.

_**'Although we've had little ups and downs,**_

_**We still pulled through,**_

_**We still pulled through.'**_

"Woot. Tell me. I'm excited."

"I know you are!" Axel exclaimed, and Demyx wondered if he really was. "Now, today…" He hesitated, teeth clenching together to carefully decide on his next words. "… Is the anniversary of the day I've been waiting for unknowingly since I was born, all this time, I've been mulling over whether or not destiny would award me someday…"

'_**I took my time to put my trust in you...'**_

Sometimes, Demyx noticed, especially when Axel was in the company of the blond of his dreams, he uncovered some kind of a paranormal power that allowed him to process things with a very elegiac mind. He could actually be more poetic than the musician himself. Roxas, on the other hand, made a face that screamed out, "_I think this guy is crazier than all of us from the mental hospital put together..._"

"Are you in any way related to Neji Hyuuga?" Roxas asked with a raised eyebrow. "Or is '_destiny_' and '_fate_' the 'in' gossip nowadays?"

'… _**I must admit it was so hard to do.'**_

Demyx hoped for the latter. If there was something that overflowed Rukia-sensei's bunnies in scariness, that would be _white_ eyes, as in, _entirely _white. And why the heck did the Neji guy and the Hinata girl grow wrinkles on their face whenever they activated the Byakugan?! It made them look gayer (in _both _senses) than they already were.

"Gyah!" This time, Axel contorted his face into a desperate grimace, as if he were losing his confidence. "God, just lemme finish the story!"

'_**And every minute that I spend with you…'**_

"What I've been trying to tell you these last twenty minutes or so, is that today," he huffed, "My dear Roxas," he faltered, as he inched towards the irksome blond, "Is the day when we first–"

"GYAH!"

"_THUMP!"_

Before Axel could finish his declaration, a jolting force caused him, Roxas, Demyx, and the other people on board the private ship to fall frontward and backward with a violent shove, thus interrupting the redhead. The whole cruiser trembled for a few seconds, its passengers screaming with dread. When at last the vehicle went firm, a flash of light caught everyone's attention and halted everyone's panic; it was so incandescent that it was visible even under the solar rays spreading throughout the area. Jack hurried to the main control room, camera in his hands, where a frantic yell had started it all. Demyx picked himself up and whined at the pain his back had grown at its unpleasant contact with the wooden floor. Did destiny, according to Axel's philosophies, really forecast all this…? _Ouch…_

'… _**You make me believe I have nothing to loose.'**_

_Except his marbles, that is, _Demyx thought while glaring at the shallow space behind him; he was damn sure that some invisible ghost called _Fate_ had been laughing at him behind his back.

"TIDUS-SAN!" Jack was heard shouting at the driver of the vehicle, "What happened?! Why did you shout?!"

Tidus continued yelling at the highest volume his vocal cords could reach.

"WE HIT AN ICEBERG!"

It was the first time Demyx actually heard Jackie-sensei sound so traumatized.

"WHAT?! REALLY?!"

"YAH!" Tidus cried with vexation, the thoughts of Apocalypse possibly clouding his fearful mind. "THE _TITANIC_ HIT AN ICEBERG!"

Demyx felt a rough-textured hand grab his as a request for support. When he helped Riku up, the eyes of the assisted boy shone with rage and his other hand started to massage his hurting bum.

"The… _moron_…" he uttered with a lot of effort, "… He was just watching the effin' movie!"

Naminé screeched at this in a way that only blonde girls with blue eyes could.

"Just who the _FUCK_ watches TV while conducting a ship!" She ran over to the nearest railing, bending her back at a perfect straight angle to face the waters below her. "_Fuck_ you, you _fucking_ son of your _fucking _grandmother's _fucking _daughter! _You _fucking_ knocked off my pizza_!"

Demyx promptly ignored his psychiatrist's and his weird pirate friend's attempt to run over to the enraged girl and convince her to not jump in after her beloved food. He wouldn't have done so in normal circumstances, the word 'normal' having a distinctive definition in his own little vocabulary, but something in the corner of his vision acquired his interest.

Right three meters ahead of him sat Axel, his eyes forcefully closed and his long arms enfolded protectively around the smaller body of an equally frightened blond. Roxas's eyes were tightly shut, too, and he was exchanging the secure embrace, unknowingly.

'_**And deep down I always knew**_

_**That you would be mine.'**_

"Ouh…" moaned Axel as he brushed his face on Roxas's sun-kissed hair, unable to massage the injured back of his head for the lack of free arms. "This… sucks..."

Roxas shakily moved his hands about, trying to find a strong surface to grip and hold on. At last, he grasped the taller man's shoulders with each of his hands and pulled himself up on his feet, still on Axel's lap. Demyx, who was observing all these motions with a pleased notion, knew that Roxas was going to fall anyway, and he did, for he was not aware of the position he was in. Axel opened his eyes and mouth, dithering while deciding whether he should dare to touch his beloved. At last, his right hand flew forward to ruffle Roxas's fair spikes, and he licked his dry lips and waited for the blond to face him. Roxas shook his head, trying to come back to the living world, and when he looked forward his midnight oceans met Axel's fluidic greens.

'_**Every time I look at you, I can believe….'**_

"H-hi," muttered Axel nervously, not removing his palm from the other's soft hair, "I think… we hit an iceberg, or _some_thing…"

'_**My love for you will never end…'**_

Roxas lowered his head a little, somehow sinking under the weightless hand on his head.

"Oh, ok," he replied, seeming only faintly startled by the passing events.

'_**As long as time keeps on passing by.'**_

Axel began to lightly tap Roxas's head uncertainly, inwardly soliciting the blond to say something, _anything_, which could get them out of this embarrassing silence. But Roxas did not move, as if he were thinking the same thing about Axel. He just blinked expectantly, and no sound came out of his firmly closed mouth.

"The… the thing is, Ro-Roxas, that, umm…"

_Tell him already, you bastard!_ Demyx inwardly screamed. It wasn't like he was confessing his love to him or anything. If this was how it was when telling the blond what day it was, _then imagine what would happen when Axel would have to tell him that he loved him!_

_No wait, don't, that will just worsen the situation…_

**_'__Cause my heart spoke_**

**_For the very first time in a long while…'_**

As if Axel had suddenly learned to read Demyx's mind, he picked up his courage and stated, confidently:

"Today is the day we first met, Roxas."

_**'… Do you believe in destiny?'**_

At first, Demyx was convinced that he had fulfilled his job – the song/poem/whatever was finished! And Axel was proud. He had demonstrated to Roxas that there was more to life than can be caught by the eyes alone. The past is the experience; the present is the experiment; the future is the expectation. He had abstractly informed Roxas that if you had to fulfill your expectations, you had to use your experiences in your experiments. Everything in life was an experiment. The lanes of memories in one's heart are representatives of their past. And if a person had both his memories and a _life_, why should he be barren of a destiny? Destiny, fate, the lot in life, kismet… That was the whole point Axel was trying to make, Demyx said to himself. It was all _real_.

"Oh, _really_?!"

Roxas started laughing full-heartedly, and Axel laughed along with him their echoes fluctuating harmonically within the ocean's diffident waves. Just like an eager swimmer, Demyx wanted to join the swimming pool of joy too, but he forbid himself at the last minute by returning to _reality_. He should not enter their happiness, he should just leave them in peace and let them enjoy their moment together. After all, who was he to interfere with their spiraling whirlpool of love?

_**'Because I got a funny feeling**_

_**This was meant to be.'**_

Still, he couldn't call it a song, not with only fourteen lines. He was too inspired by Axel's ideology; he'll just continue to add some more lines and repeat the chorus. If he couldn't take any photos to conserve the memory of this blissful moment, he'll just have to write it down in his mind. The final paper and music sheet could wait.

"So-sorry, Axel," Roxas barely made out between his laughs, "I forgot."

Axel was always right when it came to Roxas. That is how he knew, from the beginning, that Roxas forgot, or that he didn't know at all – he had always been a shallow little petty-head. Axel forgave him silently, and so did Demyx, but just because he was able to see, through Axel, that the blond was not to blame. He had never considered this day important anyway, and if he did he didn't show it. Demyx wordlessly prayed that he did or that he began to take notice to these kinds of things, because he _needed_ Axel. B_ecause, Roxas, you need to know that life is not an illusion. When you want it to be, it can become_ real.

_**'From day one I was sprung**_

_**Knew you was gonna be one.''**_

Pitching away every feeling of obloquy and regret, Axel fervently pushed Roxas against his chest. The blond gasped as his delicate face smashed against the redhead's solid chest, and he muffled the other's name in bewilderment. But Axel refused to let him go. Why should he, when life had given him another chance? He didn't want to live an existence full of regrets; full of opportunities he had thrown away. The game had given him an opening; all he had to do now was to accept it without further remorse because if he didn't, he'd miss out on his victory. Even the smallest of mishaps could distort the outcomes badly, and even the tiniest conquest could enlighten the future forever.

_**'Knew you was gonna be one.'**_

Roxas had stopped struggling. Maybe it was because he realized that he couldn't have any effect on Axel. Axel was his guide, Axel was the missing part of him, Axel was his third hand and his second pair of feet, his front, his back, his right, his left. If Roxas were the naked body, Axel would be his clothes, keeping him warm every winter. If Roxas were a vase, Axel would be a bouquet of blood-red roses beautifying his dull being with dazzling shades. If Roxas were a diary, Axel would be the ink that wrote its entries, treasuring his precious memories and giving him his own life. If Roxas were a camera, Axel would be the roll of film that would help him record the images of the world. If Roxas were his Axel, Axel would be his Roxas.

_**'You're my world, my everything…'**_

Axel was his everything. It was futile to try to overpower him because he could never win a race against Time, because Time empowered Axel so much that he now brimmed over Roxas's own control.

_"Axel."_

Roxas's tone did not express any anger. Drowsiness was lingering in his voice, and the tips of his supple fingers were delicately brushing across Axel's covered flesh, sending shivers down his spine. Axel's heart was beating faster and faster, while Roxas drove his hands upwards towards the man's bare neck. At the slight, pianist fingers tickling, Axel failed to resist a moan filled with pleasure…

… Roxas sighed heavily. He rested his hands again on Axel's shoulders, lifting his head from under the man's chin and looking straight at Axel's affectionate face with clouded eyes.

_"Is this a dream?"_ He whispered, the sound of his words buoying stagnantly on the air like a thin thread of cotton candy.

_**'Dream and fantasize…'**_

For Axel, it was a moment of spasm. Roxas's face, it was just centimeters away… It wouldn't hurt if he just got a little closer, would it? Just… _millimeters apart_… When he felt his nose touch the others, he felt warm. Warmer. He felt… _sexy_, in a sense…

_How could it all be a dream?_

_**'Dream and fantasize**_

_**Cause you can tell me**_

_**That you love me.'**_

"Can you _feel_ in a _dream_, Roxas?" he whispered with a teasing tone, the taste of seduction exiting with his every breath and trying to savor the soul of his innocent victim.

Roxas shook his head, his nose brushing the others with the movement of his head.

"N-no…"

'Looking in my eyes…'

Axel smirked impishly, and once again teased the blond with his tantalizing voice.

"Can you _feel me, Roxas_?"

Roxas nodded, still in a haze, an obscure hint of a blush sketched on his porcelain face.

"_Y-yeah_…"

"_So_," Axel leaned further in, their noses pressing, their lips almost stroking, "It can't be a _dream_, can it?"

The warmth of Axel's breath made contact with Roxas's own lips, heating them with the intensity of an inferno of longing desire.

"You…" Roxas mumbled brokenly, "… You mean this feeling is _real_?"

_**'You keep it real with me…'**_

"Yes, Roxas. R-E-A-L, real. Got it memorized?"

_**'I keep it real with you.'**_

Axel pressed his lips on the tip of the younger boy's nose, kissing his morbid flesh gently with his mawkish strokes. If this were going to be _real_, he would have to go slow. Gradually, he would start to make Roxas's heart thaw – not break, but _melt_. He was going to prove that love is not something fake. Alas, it was definite and surely palpable if your heart allowed it to be… He would make his little blond understand that all this had been predicted long before – it was _destiny_. Because from the first time Axel laid his fortunate eyes on Roxas, he just _knew _that they were connected. They were _meant_ for one another, and that was the greatest reason for him to live.

_**'You keep on loving me…'**_

As the two twin souls embraced each other closely, falling from this dream world into the oblivion universe of veracity, Demyx turned his glance away from the seraphic scene. Aloud, he hummed the rest of the lyrics as the final occurrences of the day passed in the progress of time.

_**'I keep on loving you.'**_

Roxas's weak but acute words and Axel's repartee ones were now soft murmurs behind him, echoing faintly with his every step.

_"Axel?"_

_"Hmm?"_

_"You broke my nose."_

_"Ah… Sorry, little guy. That doesn't work with me."_

_"… What? You don't believe me?_

_"I know you're kidding, Roxie. But I'll believe you anyway."_

**_'I keep doing what you do.'_**

"…" Roxas was lacking words for a moment. "… _Why?_"

_"Because, Roxas,"_ Axel recited with solemnity, _"If I don't, this reality we're living in will become a dream again. I don't want to dream anymore, Roxas. I want to live in the real side of the world – a world with you, in a dream without you."_

After a long moment of contemplation, Roxas nodded with the hint of an unpretentious smile.

_"Sounds good to me."_

_**'I feel your whole aura…'**_

_**'And I can again tomorrow baby.'**_

Then he frowned.

_"But you're not making any sense at all."_

Closing his eye to that last comment by the exasperating blonde, Demyx chuckled. Great, he thought, while stepping back into his cabin. Absolutely _charming_. Now all he had to do was apply some proofreading and music to it.

_Perfect._

* * *

_**Authoress's Notes:** 3775 words, 873+ than Prologue. LONGEST CHAPTER! Song (Baby Boy) belongs to Big Brovaz – had originally written the song myself, but it sucked so much that I stuck it back into Demyx's ass (THAT HURTS! NdDemyx) – I had to delete some lines in-between... Mr. Tumnus from C. S. Lewis, Neji and Hinata Hyuuga from Naruto._

**Lord Voldemort: **I hate this chapter. The destiny shit reminds me of that fucking Prophecy! Grr…

**Jack: **J. K. Rowling said she believes in luck, not in destiny.

**TMES: **And most of you do too, but I don't, and neither does Tetsuya Nomura! (Speaking of whom… beware…) I mean, come on… Destiny Islands, Key of Destiny, paopu fruit helping your destinies become intertwined, 'one sky, one destiny'… Anywayz, the destiny crap is Axel's dilemma, not mine, not yours. I also threw Roxas's dilemma in! I trust you to know what it is (since I wrote about it back in Ch. 4). BTW: don't you dare to even _think _that this fate crap is gonna be cliché, cuz you're wrong! Ye be warned: this doeth not end here! (_"Bwahah!" goes Demyx_.)

COMMENT, ASK QUESTIONS, STATE OUT DISCOVERIES, POINT OUT MISTAKES, COMPLAIN!

** WARN US IF THE STORY IS WAY TOO CONFUSING! TELL US WHERE!**


	9. Chapter 8

* * *

_**EXCUSES: MONTHLY EXAMS, FINAL EXAMS, NO INTERNET CONNECTION.**_

**Jack:_ NOTE ON THE STORY: UTADA HIKARU IS THE ALL-POWERFUL BOSS. TETSUYA NOMURA IS JUST A STEWARD._**

_**I'LL BE VERY THANKFUL IF YOU READ THE NOTE BELOW.**_

**TMES: **This story clearly states that my writing style sucks… I know I won't gain a lot of improvement concerning writing skills by writing this, but then again, this was not my aim first of all. All I was trying to do was to make an effort in starting a story and _finishing _it: not a one shot, a bit longer, something that could test my patience and constancy. Also, I was trying to improve the application of allegory in my writing (something I LOVE to do). The main thing is that I tried to write this thing _fanfiction _style – where the readers already know about the characters and don't really need many descriptions and stuff, even if it's an alternate universe. Last summer I read a story here in – I read only the first three chapters or so; I didn't go on since I lost sight of it. Anyway, this AkuRoku fic was filled with humor and overly crazy stuff and was intensely 'fanfictive'; it was actually my second inspiration for _At the Psychiatrist_ (first one being _Carmine Complex_). I don't really know the summary of it, but I do know that in the first chap it talked about a family reunion… then Sora's mum (Belle) acts rudely towards her sister (who happens to be Meg, Roxas's mum). They kinda fight (Meg spills wine on Belle…?) and their family breaks apart. In the next chap, Roxas goes to Destiny Islands, and when he finds out that he has to go to the same school as his cousin Sora, he heats up… I remember him being best friends with Selphie before he came to Destiny… and having a lot of bros and sis's (Marluxia, Rikku, Namine, etc.) and Herc as his dad! … If you know which story I'm talking about, then you know how I initially wanted to set this story. Also, _if you happen to find it, call me!_ I WANNA READ IT AGAIN!

**Jack: **Beware the '…' in this chap… IT'S AXEL'S DAY: 8 AUGUST '08! AND IT'S ALSO 8 PM! (At least here in Italy…) AXEL'S CHAPTER NO. 8! Without Axel… _"A symbol of you, in a chapter without you…"_ 8-

* * *

**At the Psychiatrist**

**-Chapter Eight-**

The setting of Destiny Island's coasts was indubitably different from that of Traverse Town. The first distinction could be found in its atmosphere, which, contrary to the heavier and hectic one of the big city, was feathery and placid like a millpond. The sky was partly unclear, with an altostratus here and there that made it look like a watercolor painting. Next came the greenery – a number of palm trees in the corners of the beach and on the upper center parts of the isles and thick rainbow-like bushes of overly exotic flowers, the minuscule ones catching the acute eyes and the gargantuan ones jutting out at various angles.

In short, the earth was green, the beach was sandy, the sea was blue, the sky was… uh, it was blue as well, and the time was –

"_Wrong._"

Namine looked up from her fuming bowl of minestrone.

"Say wha?"

Jack's head moved slowly from side to side, his unemotional gaze staring at his digital watch. His mouth hung slightly open, and his fist was becoming tighter as the seconds passed. His face, contrary to his eyes, let know his lost sense of disbelief. He was so thunderstruck that when Namine leaned over to him to take a look at his curious watch, the side of her candid face stroking his shoulder delicately, he did not even flinch.

"Eight-thirty," Namine mumbled dumbly as she retrieved her head from her doctor's side. "So? What's so fucking wrong 'bout the time?"

Jack continued to shake his head.

"It's… it's not eight… thirty…" he blabbed with difficulty as his eyes began to blink at a very rapid pace, "It's… it's 8:30 _P.M._"

Namine grunted, but did not return to her hot meal.

"Wow, you just fucking learnt how to read."

"It's 8:30 _P.M…_." Jack wholly ignored the boorish girl and continued his apparently insensible monologue. "It's… half past twenty."

"Yes, asshole, it is," Namine was surprised with herself to find out that she was being slow in getting piqued with the redhead.

"It's half past twenty."

"… And just what is the fucking point of all this?"

Jack finally broke free from his ogling and turned to the annoyed girl, his faintly welled eyes looking at her intently from behind the lenses of his glasses.

"It's _night_," he frowned with developing aggravation, "It's 8:30 _P.M._, half past twenty, which means that it's supposed to be _night_."

Both of them twisted their faces upwards, facing the vaguely clouded, _luminous_ blue sky. At last, Namine understood.

"Holy fuck."

* * *

"WE HAVE ARRIIIIIVED!"

Sora excitedly pushed the tip of his index finger against the glass of the circular window beside which he and Riku had been sitting for a while. His animated beryl eyes were scanning the equally blue sky with entrenched nostalgia. Riku smiled lazily at the object of his happiness and then sighed, amused.

"I can see that, Sora…"

Sora turned to look at him with a childish pout sprouting on his lips.

"But Roxas can't! He's got his eyes closed!" He pointed behind his current window-side companion towards a lower bunk bed where a lone blond was sleeping like a poor kid who had just had to bear Neji Hyuuga going on about 'fate' and 'destiny' the whole day.

From another bunk bed on the other side of the room came a very annoyed grumble.

"That's 'cause he's sleeping, dumbass," King Mickey said with both irritation and pity lingering in his tone.

A certain silver-haired male glared daggers at his so-called best friend and opened his mouth to disclose some very colorful insults from within its vile meanders, but he was promptly interrupted when the mouse managed to throw some cookies inside it. Sora, on the other hand, had realized with much fascination the clever knowledge that the King had just shown to have of Roxas.

"Oooooh…" the brunet made as he watched him in awe.

"And I was sleeping too, as a matter of fact," the King continued while throwing a last biscuit at Riku and hiding his big round head under the pillow.

Sora, Riku, Roxas and King Mickey were sharing a room – some sort of a cabin… _thing_ – with two pair of bunk beds on either side of it. One side was supposed to be occupied by Sora and Roxas, and the other by Riku and King Mickey. But as soon as the four had entered their present abode after a rigorous dinner on the deck of the private, outsized yacht, they had been blinded by a beam of morning light projecting through the glass of the small round window in the middle of the wall. Roxas, being Roxas, had immediately thrown himself on the bed without question. King Mickey, being King Mickey, had followed suit, although he had questioned why the heck the sun was shining during nighttime. Riku, being Riku, had put on his sunglasses and given the sun the infamous finger. And Sora, being Sora, had run up to face Mr. Sun and had spotted the outline of their destination first, claiming that the Light of Destiny was hailing them.

"But it's morning!" Sora retorted animatedly at the King's last statement.

The other, too hacked off to reply, let Riku rejoin for him.

"I know," Riku smiled tiredly at the brownie while he pouted cutely, "But we're kind of very sleepy…"

Sora stopped pouting and assumed his usual thinking position, his index finger on a cheek and his roseate tongue poking from the corner of his lips.

"I wonder why it's morning?" He inquired after some short seconds of contemplation. "I thought we just had dinner…"

"We did," Riku replied as he scratched his head.

"Maybe the sun likes us a lot and wanted to greet us before the moon did!" Sora exclaimed with much enthusiasm, leaning towards the silveret, eager to hear him state his agreement.

Riku bit his lower lip. He didn't catch that last comment, but he did realize that Sora's head had edged a bit closer than it ordinarily would have in normal circumstances. The boy's eyes were twinkling with excess enthusiasm, and for a split second he spotted the King giving him thumbs up from behind Sora's back. That's when he realized that he had to act fast; without wasting any more time he too leaned, towards Sora, until their foreheads made contact.

Spurred on by his thundering heart, Riku blurted out the first five words that surfaced in his racing mind.

"I don't like the sun."

Someone's exasperated mousy wail followed that bit of a failure, but went completely ignored and simply overlapped by a louder yowl of disbelief.

"Eeeeeh?!" Sora leaned back from the touch, sending a disappointed Riku falling almost onto his lap. "Why not!?"

Riku hesitated before sitting back into a normal position on his chair. Staring hard at those ultramarines that he so much loved he tried to find something other than surprise and incredulity in their abysses. But Sora didn't seem to be anything but taken aback; it was like that little contact with Riku had never happened. He hadn't even cringed with alarm or anything…

"… I told you already," Riku uttered, finally alleviating his optic scrutiny and resuming his lovesick smile. "I come from this island that's always dark and there's only a moon, no sun…"

Sora gleamed back naively; he was either a matchless actor, or the cutest dumbass ever.

"And I come from this island with only the sun and no moon!" he radiantly voiced those familiar words.

"Yeah, you told me," Riku spoke back, glancing behind the other boy to throw a disapproving glimpse at King Mickey's snoring silhouette; _he is _so _doing this on purpose…_

That's when something probing occurred to him. He looked back at Sora and distraughtly narrowed his eyes.

"Is that why you can't sleep?"

Much to his surprise, Sora didn't emotionally draw back at all. Again, it felt like speaking to a first-class actor or a placid, happy-go-lucky boy.

Instead of sitting on the fence, the boy readily replied: "Yup."

"… But," Riku insisted incautiously, "Don't you ever feel tired?"

"Yup," Sora repeated, smiling broadly.

"… Then shouldn't you, I dunno, be laying half-dead on a hospital bed or something?" Riku continued his out-loud musing. "I mean, lack of energy is one hell of a…" Riku halted shortly, remembering that half of his 'classmates' suffered from ADHD. "… _Physical_ disease…" He finished with a tone of uncertainty.

Sora shrugged, wiping that smile off his face and looking a bit uncertain himself.

"Well, yeah, there's this one time when it became such a pain in the butt that I tried to die…"

A Guinness record of ten second passed before the meaning of Sora's last three words registered in Riku's mind.

"Wha… TRIED TO DIE?!" He bellowed frenetically and jumped up from his chair.

Sora, looking right through all this, waved him off with quite an uncommonly mellow frown.

"But then I figured out that I kinda couldn't…" was all he said in reply.

"AND YOU SHOULDN'T!" Riku squealed with horror and, unlike the snorting King, completely forgot about his manly pride; he was too busy refraining himself from grabbing Sora's shoulders and shaking him furiously and begging him to promise not to commit suicide again and hugging him as hard as he could and crying with joy when Sora would say okay and then pulling him back and kissing him with the equal fierce of two Firaga's mating in the boiler room.

"I know," Sora said plainly, scrolling back his shoulders and looking ignorant of the increasing heat which _Riku_ was not at all ignorant of.

The older male calmed down a bit at this, but internally he was still slightly quaking with fear and anxiety.

"You _know_?" he asked with the little bit of composure left in him. "Then… Why… You said that you kinda couldn't…" He mumbled doubtfully.

"Yup," said Sora for the third time.

"Why?"

Sora put on his thinking pose again, trying to articulate a decent answer to satisfy the curious silver cat.

"Hmm…" He began, clicking his tongue and staring absorbedly at the ceiling. "Let's just say that if I were to die, I wouldn't only kill Sora, would I? I'd kill somebody else as well."

Although he wasn't as staggered as before, Riku frowned with almost as much concern.

"What?" he exclaimed worriedly. "Who?!"

Sora didn't reply immediately. He made a dramatic pause, and then…

"… Me and myself, of course!"

The record now was a whole minute.

"… Right…" Riku made out hoarsely as he weakly leaned his head on the wall, not knowing if he should laugh at the joke or cry at the frivolity of it all.

He watched Sora from behind his half-closed eyelids until sleep overpowered him. Sora watched over him in return with a sweet smile on his lips, but when the older boy fell asleep, the smile faded away. He slowly walked to his bed, not once taking his eyes off the sleeping boy. He climbed the ladder cautiously with his head turned the other way, still keeping an eye on Riku.

He kept staring even when he finally lay down, all the time wondering how Riku would have reacted if he had told him that _he_ was the other person he would've killed with his suicide. **(2)**

* * *

Later that day (or night?), after Jack (with the help of Tidus and some other colleagues from the Islands) had dragged his semi-dormant patients inside the boarding rooms of the only hospital in Destiny Islands, he was cheerfully welcomed by a Mr. Nomura laughing his ass off at the current situation.

"_BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"_

Jack carefully leaned his chin on the desk behind which the steward of the Destiny Islands' headquarters was jumping on his chair and waving his fists like the Easter bunny, his dark eyes shut tight and his black strands leaping with the momentum of his body.

"_BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!"_

Apparently, thought Jack, Mr. Ansem (he didn't want to call him DiZ) had resorted to the St. Passione hospital in Traverse Town instead of the St. Passione hospital in Destiny Islands because the one in Destiny didn't provide any medical service for mentally ill people.

"_BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"_

Well, yeah, with a boss who's lunatic himself, who'd want to baby-sit psychopaths?

At last, after half an hour of gauche lunacy, Mr. Nomura resorted himself and sat loosely on his chair, his chin against the surface of the desk, facing Jack's head's symmetrical position, and his arms hanging droopily from his deadbeat figure.

"Jackie-kun," he croaked with tiredness, his voice having a slight trace of entertainment, "Your clock isn't wrong. It _is _post meridiem time."

"… But…"

"But the sun is up, yes," the sooty-haired man smiled with genuine delight, showing off his purely white teeth in an irritatingly flirtatious manner, finishing the other's sentence; not that Jack had the vivacity and energy to continue anyway. "The clock says it's night, but the eyes prove otherwise."

Jack closed his burning blues; what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over. _Whatever you say, you _hopeless loser_… Just shut the _fuck_ up._

"I guess you've never been in Destiny Islands before, or you would've know about this phenomenon," Mr. Nomura's amused voice resounded through the darkness that existed behind Jack's eyelids while the psychiatrist damned a certain blonde for influencing him so much.

"… Hmm…?" he hummed. "… I've been here once… twice… some when…" Jack mumbled randomly although he wasn't lying.

"Then you must've stayed for a very short time, and definitely not in the summertime! Or else you wouldn't be so surprised."

"…" Jack wished he could borrow Namine's rude audacity and tell the man in front of him to fuck off (aloud). "… What's all this about…?"

The redhead hadn't moved and opened a single eye, but he knew Mr. Nomura was now on his feet.

"Your watch is right because Destiny Islands and Traverse Town are not in different time zones – they're not so far from each other. Less than a day in a slow-going cruiser between 'em!"

"… Yeah…"

"Night being day and day being night is a thing that happens in the Islands every year," Mr. Nomura continued to blabber excitedly, pacing around the room with wobbly footsteps. "It's an event that lasts two weeks; during this time, the night and the day revert timetables and there are constant meteor showers going on at night, or day, if you wanna put it like that!!"

Mr. Nomura hesitated, but Jack insisted in not commenting.

"This time is called, strangely enough, the weeks of the _Bridge of Marriage_!" the man persisted with maintaining hope to draw the younger man's attention. "Sounds ridiculous at first, but the islanders have been calling it like that for ages because they thought that during this annual period, some kind of a 'bridge' was constructed in the Islands by the meteor showers, a bridge on which Day and Night were to marry…"

Jack gently brushed his cheek on the relaxingly cold wood of the desk and muttered mutely, _"Yeah, and I'll ask Namine-chan to marry me on the bath-bulb light-tub thing…"_ **(1) **Then, while lifting his eyelids strenuously, he said, "Quite insensible if you ask me…"

Mr. Nomura returned to his chair and stuck his tongue out at the doctor.

"I didn't ask you!"

"…" Again, that terrible welter for a simple swearword surfaced back into Jack's cloudy mind. "… Where did they get the idea of a 'bridge'? Meteor showers don't have _anything _to do with a bridge. And," Jack was intent on silencing the irksome guy with the little vigor he had left, "Why would day and night want to marry every year, over and over again?"

The speech did silence the other for a little moment, underline little, italicize it, and make it bold, for the man's lips quirked into a mischievous grin.

"Good questions, Jackie-kun," he sniggered, "But I've got your answers all ready. You see," (Jack banged his head on the table) "I think they named it _Bridge of Marriage _because after those two weeks of love, the Day and the Night would kind of quarrel, and this quarrel would lead to the divorce between the two lovers…"

"… _You're kidding me…"_

"… Then," Mr. Nomura carried on with inspiration, ignorant of or ignoring the other's lack thereof, "Exactly a year after the divorce, the two would realize their mistake and marry again, their childish cycle going on year after year. Also, the Destiny Islands' people chose to call these annual periods the _Bridge _of Marriagebecause the _Showers _of Marriage (hence the meteor showers)sounded really perverted."

Another grin.

"So, what do you think?"

With two last words as a reply, the redhead fell into the welcoming embrace of Morpheus.

"_No comment."_

* * *

_Black, blue, and purple were swirling in the environment around him like acrylic colors as he was dragged along a downward slope-like surface, his hand clasped tightly and roughly by another warm one. His vision could not recognize any contours, but they were able to percept colors. White… There was a white silhouette in front of him. It was his kidnapper's._

"_Namine-chan…"_

_Abruptly, Namine stopped. Jack couldn't see her face for she was turned around, but he could perfectly picture her mentally. Strange… How can you think in a dream? Ah, the wonders of the human mind…_

_Namine ignored her name being called and stretched her hand forward until it reached a doorknob. When she opened it, everything became clear._

_Clear, clean, crystalline, glassy, bright…_

_White…_

_Empty… _

_... Except…!_

"_You have to get in there," Namine brusquely shoved Jack towards the only monument of the chamber._

_It was a candid structure thrice as big as he was, standing in the center of the colorless territory. It had an almost cylindrical base supporting it, just like a pot. Its shape was oval, and reminded Jack of the light bulb of his bed lamp…_

_It opened._

_Jack turned behind. Only then he realized that there were other colors besides white. Namine's feet… They were firm, situated on circular, vivid aquamarine strips of light on the floor. His eyes traveled upwards; Namine's hair caressed her face and right shoulder with its seraphic touch, contrasting its creamy shade with her skin's fairness; her eyes, two sapphire stones that belonged to a hypnotist, glared at him with indescribable emotions._

"_If you don't get in," she hissed, her voice as sweet as white chocolate being devoured by Hell itself, "I'll eat Ms. Utada."_

_Jack attempted to scream, but no voice came out of his dry throat. Namine sniggered._

"_I'm kidding, asshole," she resumed with saccharine malice. "But I might decide to cut her into tiny bits and pieces and stick them into a pizza and add some basilica to it - she'd taste great."_

"_Na… mi…"_

_It hurt._

"_Just get the fuck in."_

_Jack bit his tongue, preventing it to protrude out to moisten his desiccated lips. _Namine-chan won't like it_, he thought fervently, feeling hot all over. _She said it looked disgusting…

_He got in as the girl bore on her face a wicked grin._

_So nefarious, and yet, so lovely…_

_The shell of the corm was transparent for a moment, then it quickly dissolved into solid whiteness. Trembling, Jack's fingers made contact with its walls. It couldn't be made of glass, he sensed. He took a more detailed look around: ceramic? Marble? Diamond? Or… could this be…? … A bathtub…? … Yes, it looked like one, especially with that cavity at the bottom center... Oh._

Shit.

_Once again, Jack's scream was suppressed, this time by the reddish substance that flowed out of the fissure. The smoke entered his ears, his eyes, his entire body… until it reached his brain. After that, it vanished, as if nothing had happened._

_Jack was now floating in bliss. Around him, chunks of broken, black glass lay in spherical layers like a fortification of outgrown crystals. On their surface, invisible rays reflected with luster, creating virtual images of everything._

_Everything._

_Jack squinted as he felt the daggering image of Namine glazing at him from one of those mirrors. She extended her hand, breaking the shiny barrier of glass that separated them. Jack, with ignorant fraught, reached out and grabbed her._

"_Namine-chan!"_

_Namine pulled back, carrying Jack into the glass with her._

"_Save me, Jackie-sensei."_

_That voice did not belong to Namine._

…

Jack woke up.

"_Sora-kun_…" he mumbled.

All he saw at first was the slight puce of his illumined bangs and the shadowy gray of the walls of a room. Batting his eyelids with discomfort, he pulled himself up from the hard surface he had fallen asleep onto, which also turned out to be Mr. Nomura's desk - perfect place. It's a good thing the guy wasn't a pedophile despite his effeminacy, speaking of which… Jack languorously grabbed a post-it from the desk, on which a pink glittered message (written with a minuscule cursive writing that was barely readable) caught his eyes.

'_gud mornin jacky-kun! u fell aslip on da desk so at 1__st__ i thot id beta carry u to ur room, but den i remember dat i dunno were ur room is! so i thot of me room, but den i realize I hav a bed an itsy bitsy 2 small 4 both of us! so i decide to leave u here X3 hope u had a great night & golden dreams! wit luv, tetsu-chan ps i gave u a quilt to keep urself warm… §+§'_

Jack turned his semi-closed eyes on the floor, where a purple quilt with moogle prints lay discarded on the floor. Too bad it slipped…

Thanks anyway, Tetsu-chan.

* * *

**(1) **The 'he' in italics refers to Riku, in case you found it confusing. (TELL US IF YOU DID PWEASE!)

**(2) **I edited Ch. 1 (a long time ago…) and wrote about Namine telling Jackie she saw him in the girl's bathroom sleeping on something that looked like a mix between a bathtub and a light bulb… Scan through that chap if you wanna – I can assure you it's worth it! X3 _Scan _through, not _read_. :3

_**Authoress's Notes: **__+719 more than the Prologue, 3,621 words. Had to shorten it since it had originally reached 4,442 words… O.OU Credits go to __Edward Elric__ for giving me a certain quote…_

**Jack: **Ever been in the Cavern of Remembrance in KHII FM+ or heard its theme in the soundtrack? You should. It gave inspiration for me dream. 8-

**Lord Voldermort: **… You call that a face?


	10. HAPPY AKUROKU DAY!

**DONT REVIEW THIS CHAP UNLESS YOU'RE NOT PLANNING TO REPLY TO THE REAL CHAPTER 9.**

HAPPY AKUROKU DAY! (At least here in Italy it's 13/08…damn them time zone problems...)

I WAS ACTUALLY PLANNING TO POST CHAPTER 9, BUT I KINDA COULDN'T MAKE IT… SOWWY!

EXCUSES INCLUDE EXAMS, NO INTERNET CONNECTION (WHICH LED TO LACK OF MOTIVATION), AND MECHANICAL PROBLEMS (MY LAPTOP CHARGER FUCKED UP THE HOUSE'S ELECTRIC CURRENT'S CIRCULATION!!)

SO ANYWAY, I POSTED A NEW CHAPTER OF _The Butterfly and the Fairy _SO CHECK IT OUT!

(O.T. – Anyone offering to beta that story?)

AKUROKU FOREVA PEOPLE!

Love from The Mad Empty Shell

**Jack: **And me.

And him!


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